The imports were the metals for the smith, guns, swords, lead, powder, rum, salt, sickles, razors, jack-knives, scissors, needles. There was seen occasionally, in the most forehanded families, a show of red shag cotton, calico, or Manchester. Very rarely some ambitious woman would appear with a silk wimple, scarf, or ribbon. In such extreme cases, be she dame or maiden, the stern hand of the law fell heavily upon the culprit, and certainly with more weight if she wore the unseemly and offending article "in a flaunting manner."
They had neither tea nor coffee. Their drink beside water was cider or malt beer. Spirituous liquors were a luxury, used principally in sickness, at weddings, funerals, or other special occasions. Indian corn and wheat were staple articles of diet; the former eaten as hulled corn, or beaten in a mortar into samp or hominy; and probably wheat was prepared in the same manner. Their dishes were of wood or pewter; gourd-shells answered for dippers and vessels of various use; and clam-shells made acceptable spoons. The household utensils were largely home-made.
Artisans were few. The wood-work of their carts, ploughs, yokes, and other farm implements, was generally made at home. The cart-irons, ploughshares, chains, axes, billhooks, scythes, and other cutting instruments, were hammered out on the anvil of the village blacksmith; and the work turned out by them is unequalled by any of the craft to-day.
With all their hardships and poverty, with all their distress and danger, the people were strict in the observance of all the established rites of their faith. The meeting-house burned in Philip's War was at once replaced on the second settlement. Within a score of years this had been outgrown, and a third edifice erected. It was two stories, square, with the roof rising from each of the sides to the turret in the centre. Of the interior finish a little is known. There were no pews; the worshippers were "seated" in fixed places, according to rules established in town-meeting, where the "dignity" of each rude bench was formally discussed and declared by vote. The women sat on the right of the minister, and the men on the left. The boys and girls were stored away somewhere in nooks and corners, under the eye of the tythingmen. On each side of the entrance places were reserved where, on entering, the men could deposit their loaded guns under the care of an appointed guard. While the faithful pastor was warning his devout hearers against the wiles of the tempter within, the sentinel, stationed in the turret above, watched all approaches, to guard against surprisal by an enemy without.