Occupations of Colonial Southampton

by Mrs. Edward P. White | circa 1932

The people who first settled Southampton were all English men and omen. We would like to know just what each man did in England before he came. Some left beautiful homes to come, others came to find a home. Some came for faith, some for adventure, some to make a living. Each man put a certain amount of money into the venture, and received three acres of village land, the farm land which he tilled, and the wood land [on] which built his home and kept his home fires. Besides the common pasture land, there was undivided land in which the first settlers had rights that were passed on to their children.

In 1649, nine years after the town was settled and one year after the people moved to the new village on Towne street, there were twenty-nine families; in 1657, there were sixty-one. In the beginning, every man was a farmer, because everything that the family ate or wore or used had to be made or raised on the farm. But if we read the Town records carefully, we find other occupations growing in number as the town grows in size. The Reverend Abraham Pierson was a staunch leader. He was a man of learning and judgment as well as a preacher of sound doctrine. Not only did he preach on the Sabbath, but he framed the laws, married the people, baptized their children buried their dead, visited them in sickness, advised them in difficulty, and corrected them in wrong-doing.

CAPTAIN OF SHIP—Captain Daniel Howe was the captain of the sloop that brought them from Lynn, Massachusetts. They engaged him to make three trips a year to the mainland, and although he never settled here, he had his allotment of land. Later when Sag Harbor became a port, many Southampton boys found work on boats. In 1791, John Price, master of the packet Speedwell, ran from that port to Hartford, and Luther Hildreth, Master of the sailing sloop Industry, ran to New York “every fortnight or oftener, wind and weather permitting.”

TOWN OFFICERS—We know that magistrates and other officers were elected by the General Court. The town clerk was paid for writing wills and letters, but most of these men served without pay. “The secretary shall have four shillings per annum for keeping the towne books, but none for the General Court.” “Richard Mills, recorder of lands shall have two pence for every paper drawn.”

SOLDIERS—Every man was a soldier. He had to take his turn watching the fields while others worked, and in carrying his gun to meeting on Sunday. He must also belong to the train band, that is, take military training with the rest. WE find a captain of the train band elected very early in the history of the settlement. In the deed made with the Indians, the settlers promised to help defend them against all enemies. There were times, too, when rumors of Indian troubles made it necessary for every man to “bear arms.” In the town record of October 9, 1642, “It is ordered that every man in this town that beareth arms shall watch and ward and come to trayenings [trainings] in their coats.”

COWKEEPER—The General Court appointed a cowkeeper or herdsman to watch the cattle. He must see that they did not wander on the planted lands. The town record, 1643, reads, “It is ordered that whosoever shall be cowkeeper and shall according to his agreement have his wages due unto him, that it shall be lawful for the said herdsman to, with the marshal, levy said wages on the person who shall make default therein.”, which is an old fashioned way of telling us that the cowkeeper had to collect his pay from the man whose cows he watched. A very old man once told us that he could remember an old Indian who kept the gate for the Gin into the Little Plain. October 1643, the record reads, “It is ordered no cattle shall go without a keeper from the first of January to the tyme that every man’s Indian corn shall be carried home from the Playne of each side of this towne.” The Great Playne was the west, and the Little Playne east. Cattle meant cows, goats, sheep or hogs. Each owner of a fifty pound lot was entitled to pasture “8 cow kind.” Six sheep or goats were equal to one cow or one horse. Persons pasturing more than their share had to pay one shilling sixpence per head.

FENCEVIEWER—Another occupation that sounds strange to us is Fenceviewer or Haywarden. This is a very old occupation and comes down through many generations of Anglo Saxen people. It means a warden of the hedges or fences. In 1657, John Jessup and Thomas Halsey were appointed to view the fencing about the great and little Plains. At the same time it was voted, “every inhabitant of the towne that hath fencing in or about the Great and Little Playnes and Ox Pasture shall at both ends put his rails in his own posts, and this is to be done in the present month.” A custom that comes down from very ancient times is “viewing the bounds.” In England, the whole population turned out—the bounds of the parish must be followed exactly, over fences, houses, walls, up and down ladders, across roofs, through fields and woods. Young boys were always taken on the trip. They would remember longer; and in Germany, the boys were given a sound spanking at the Bound [boundary] Tree to impress the place on their minds. In Southampton, the work was done by men appointed, and under the date of January 7, 1643, we read, “Justice Cooper shall take two young men with him and visit Bound Tree about four miles beyond Parker’s, and set their names upon said tree to keep the said Bounds in memory.” The Duke’s Laws, made in 1665, provided for viewing the bounds once in three years. It was called “Triennial Perambulations.” When we find an old oak standing alone in a field, or at a corner of an unused wood lot, it is probably a Bound Tree—a tree that has marked the boundary of long ago.

BLACKSMITH—“At a Towne Meeting in June, 1641, it was granted by the inhabitants of this towne that Jeremy Veale, blacksmith, from Salem shall have a hundred pound lott, provide he come and settle here before January next, and that o his power, he be in readiness to doe all the blacksmith work that the inhabitants do stand in need of!” We wonder what the inhabitants did for a blacksmith before Jeremy Veale came. Probably every man had been his own blacksmith. Another question, “Where do you suppose the first blacksmith shop stood?”

At the same town meeting, four other men are provided with a fifty pound lot on condition that each one “make use of his trade to the best of his power.” If they do not, the “lotts shall return.” We can but wonder what their trades were. Maybe one was a shoemaker. Grandfather used to tell us that the shoemaker sometimes came late in the fall to make the shoes, because there were so many families and only one shoemaker to go around.

MILLERS—In 1644, the town granted Edward Howell forty acres of land if he would promise to build a mill to supply the necessities of the town. This mill is the old watermill at Water Mill, standing today near the spot where Edward Howell built his. The town furnished the mill stones. One came from a rock at Millstone Brook (at Sebonac), and the other from a swamp in the brick kiln (at Long Springs). We find that a man named Ludlam was engaged as miller, and ye Mill Path soon became a well travelled road.

FULLING MILL—Later there was fulling mill at Sagg Swamp, and to this day, when the water is low, the timbers of the old mill may be seen. After the sheep were shorn, the wool was spun. When the cloth was woven, it must go to the fulling mill to be cleansed, shrunken, and thickened. All these processes have now passed from the work of the home.

FISHING—As well as being a farmer, every man was a fisherman. The waters abounded in good fish, clams, oysters, scallops. The settlers were not slow in using them for food. As early as 1645, the General Court ordered that when a whale came upon the beaches, no one should take any part thereof, “but shall send word to the magistrate that it may be shared. He will receive five shillings, but if he find one on the Sabbath Day he shall receive nothing.” In an old book written in 1670, we find this: “Upon the south shore of Long Island in winter lie stores of whales and grampasses, which the inhabitants look to make a trade catching to their no small benefit.

TEACHING—We have seen that Richard Mills was the first school teacher. In 1694, John Mobray was employed to teach the school at twelve shillings “per scholler” for a six months term. The fact that Richard Mills had so many other jobs shows that teaching was poorly paid. Either Richard was a jack of all trades or (what is more likely) a very smart man. We know that he was the first inn keeper. Another inn keeper, John Cooper, kept a tavern and sold horses and had the exclusive right of catching and selling fish in Mecox and Quaquantuck creeks for four years.

CARPENTER—On the fourteenth day of November, 1650, John White undertakes to make a pair of stocks ordered by the General Court. In December of the same year, Richard Post is ordered to make “a sufficient bridge” of lumber in the new highway, “and the same Richard Post is to have for the said work, the summe of twelve shillings trewly paid as soon as the work is done.” We have already seen how Richard Post and Ellis Cook built the meeting house on the Towne Street for the new village.

INTERPRETER—Thomas Stanton was paid four pounds “for his paines about interpreting between the townsmen and the Indians about setting forth the bounds of their lands.”

MILLWRIGHT—A mill wright was one who set up the machinery in the mill. The Southampton mill or watermill must have a good report in the other towns on Long Island for in January, 1676, we find this order in the Huntington Town records: “That the constable and overseers shall with as much speed as possible send to Southampton a man that is a millwright to see if he will be willing to come to this town to agree with our town about a mill to the end we may obtain our expectation of having a good mill.”

BRICKMAKER—The first brickmaker was John Berwick who lived in Mecox. The earliest record of his work is in 1677. The old bricks were more irregular than ours, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller, sometimes highly glazed. They were made at the brick kiln back of Hampton Park. Some of its remains are seen today. There was another one at Sebonac. When the chimney of the Old Post House on Main Street was built over, a brick was found dated 1684, which accords with the time the house was built.

DOCTOR—We do not know just how early the town had a doctor of medicine. Most mothers were doctors in their own families. Every garden had its bed of herbs, hops, fennel, tansy, catnip, cammomile, [sic] and many others. The older women usually acted as neighborhood nurses, and girls were taught by their mothers to go out and “watch” with the sick. In 1698, Dr. Nathaniel Wade was living in Bridgehampton, but does not seem to have been successful, as he was ordered by the town to “forbear to meddle with his patient” any more. If you walk into any of the old graveyards, you will find the graves of many infant children. Doctors were few, and medical knowledge was scanty. Many a mother early earned the epitaph of Amy, wife of Zebuon Howell, whose grave is in the old South End Burying Grounds. “She was a faithful wife and a good mother.”

The census of 1686 gives the number of inhabitants, “old and young, Christians and hethen [sic], freemen and servants, white and black, 786. And two merchants. To bear arms, 176 soldiers and troopers. The number of marriages, christenings, and burials, 175.”

SLAVES—Slavery existed in the early days of Southampton. There were three types of servants. First the indentured servants who served for a certain term of years. The town records tell us that Edward Howell took the one-year-old child of two of his servants. She was to be “provided with meat, drink, apparel, and necessaries until the said child should be of the age of thirty years.”

Sometimes Indians bound themselves out for a term of years, sometimes their guardians did. There is this account from the East Hampton town records. “John Kirtland sells to the Rev. Thomas James my servant, Hopewell, Indian, aged 16, whom I bought of his guardians, being an orphan and not one year old for the balance of the term of 19 years, at the end of that time he [is] to receive ten pounds and a suit of clothes.” The boy was six years old when he was sold, and would be free when we was twenty-five. He was sold to a minister. This shows that people of these early days had no thought of wrong in keeping slaves. It is strange to us to read of a man buying in open market in New London a captive Indian girl about thirteen years old named Back. The man gave the girl to his wife, “and on my wife’s death to pass on in fee to her children.”

Negro slavery was common, altho’ we find many masters giving freedom before the Act of 1788 providing for it. In some of Southampton’s homes today, the names of “Aunt Tempie,” or “Uncle Silas,” or “Old Pomp” are cherished in loving memory of their faithful service in days long past.

Courtesy Lizbeth Halsey White Files, Southampton Historical Museum Archives and Research Center