a large square in Litchfield, Conn.; about the same number collected about a meeting-house in Farmington; in Windham, also in this state, some 40 or 50 houses were seen "pretty near each other," forming a square.1 The same type of village was seen by Professor Silliman in Lenox, Mass. It had 100 houses gathered about three churches, an academy and a courthouse.2 Killingworth, Conn., furnished an example of what might be called an "extended village." On its broad main street, six rods wide and one and one-half miles long, were 65 houses. In another part of the town there was a village of 109 houses. From a general survey of such figures as are given in Pease and Niles' Gazetteer it seems that in the great majority of towns the villages contained less than 50 houses.4

3

Occupations of the Village-Dwellers.

An examination of the distribution of land ownership in the inland towns shows that the occupations of the dwellers in these minute nuclei of population, the villages, did not differ essentially from those of their neighbors who lived on scattered farms along the country roads. They were all farmers. In describing the type of village found in the Connecticut Valley, President Dwight says: "The town plat is originally distributed into lots containing from two to ten acres. In a convenient spot, on each of these, a house is erected at the bottom of the courtyard (often neatly enclosed); and is furnished universally with a barn, and other convenient outbuildings.

The lot, on which the house stands, universally styled the home lot, is almost of course a meadow, richly cultivated, covered during the pleasant season with verdure, and containing generally a thrifty orchard."5 Besides these home lots the village dwellers

' Chastellux. Op. cit., I. 48, 38, 23.

2 Silliman, Benjamin. Remarks on a Short Tour between Hartford and Quebec. New Haven. 1820. p. 39.

3 See Field, D. D. A Statistical Account of the County of Middlesex in Connecticut. Published by the Connecticut Academy of the Arts and Sciences. Middletown. 1819. pp. 108-109.

4 Taking 12 towns from various counties in Connecticut, we find the following numbers of houses collected in villages: Litchfield, 84; Harwinton, 15-20; Plymouth, 20; Hampton, 20; Farmington, 100; Newtown, 50-60; Milford, 100; Brooklyn, 20; Sterling, 30; Voluntown, 15; Tolland, 30; East Windsor, 40. Of these towns Litchfield and Farmington were exceptionally large both in area and population, and Milford was situated on the coast, affording its inhabitants opportunity for maritime occupations.

Travels, II. 317. For a more general description of the New England villages see Lambert, John. Travels in Lower Canada and North America. London. 1810. 2 vols. II. 307-308, and Duncan, John M. Travels through the United States and Canada. 2 vols. New York. 1823. I. 94–95.

had outlying fields, which had been apportioned to the heads of the families at the original settlement of the town. On both these tracts they carried on agricultural operations in the same manner and to the same extent as did the farmers outside the village. The only difference between the two types of farmers seems to have been that the village dwellers were at a considerable disadvantage in going back and forth from their houses to their fields.2

Ministers, Lawyers and Physicians.

There were, however, of necessity, some persons in the town who had other interests besides agriculture, and these generally lived in the village. In the first place, there were always a few representatives of what we now call the professional class. At least one clergyman, one lawyer and one physician were evidently indispensable to each community. Of these, the minister seems to have been the one whose "calling" was most sharply distinguished from agriculture. President Dwight takes especial pains to deny the generally accepted report that the country ministers worked on their farms, except in the newest settlements. The ministers lived on farms, however, and drew from them a considerable addition to their meager salaries. The accounts of the settlement of new towns tell of the reservation of a certain share of the land for the minister; in clearing which he was assisted by his parishioners. There was

1 For a description of the method of apportioning land in early New England towns, see Weeden, William B. Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789. 2 vols. Boston. 1890. I. 53-62 and II. 512-515. Also Maclear, Anne B. Early New England Towns. New York. 1908. pp. 81-101, and Andrews, Charles M. The River Towns of Connecticut. In Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science. 7th series, VII-VIII-IX. pp. 32-79.

2 See Porter, Noah. Farmington (Conn.).

3

Historical Discourse Delivered before the Citizens of Hartford. 1841. Appendix. Note S. p. 83.

Travels, IV. 436. On the other hand, we have occasional references to the activity of ministers as farmers, as in Warville, Brissot de. New Travels in the United States of America. London. 1792. p. 453.

♦ According to MacMaster, History of the People of the United States, 6 vols., New York. 1885-1913, II. 568, the salaries of country ministers at this time varied from £75 to £140. The New England pound being equal to $3.33, this would make them worth from $250 to $550. At a somewhat later date the salaries of ministers in Middlesex County, Conn., varied from $230 to $1000. In addition to the salary a settlement of from £100 to £200, payable either in currency or in kind, was made on the installation of a new pastor. Field, Statistical Account. p. 145.

See Belknap, Jeremy. History of New Hampshire. 3 vols. Boston. 1792. III. 324.

a tendency as land grew more valuable and as the ability of the parishioners to pay a salary, either in currency or in kind, also increased, for the parishes to dispose of their land holdings. But in 1810 much remained,1 and even now in rural towns the parsonages are often situated on small farms. Although the clergymen were not farmers in the same sense or on the same scale as their parishioners, yet cultivating a kitchen garden and keeping a cow or two and some small stock were occupations which furnished some part of their living and, moreover, were not inconsistent with clerical dignity.

3

Lawyers and physicians appear regularly in every account of village life of this period. Scarcely any town managed to get along without at least one lawyer and a couple of "doctors."2 Travelers remarked on the importance of the legal profession in southern New England, especially in Connecticut, and attributed the fact to the litigious spirit of the people. It may be, however, that other more rational causes can be found. As a matter of fact, this profession offered practically the only opportunity for an ambitious young man to bring himself into prominence in the world which lay outside his own community. As a country doctor or minister he might live and die unheard of beyond the circle of a few towns, but with only the smattering of a legal education he might become a justice of the peace, a selectman, and finally be sent to the state legislature. From that vantage-ground his talents, whatever they might be, would have at least a chance to display themselves. An examination of the careers of the men who were most prominent in the politics of southern New England at the beginning of the century shows in fact that a large proportion of them had been country

'See Field. Statistical Account, 145-148.

2

A compilation of the statistics given in Pease and Niles' Gazetteer gives the following result for two typical counties in Connecticut:

In four towns in Windham County the lawyers were lacking but in the town of Windham, where the county court was held, there were eight. In this county there were five towns which had each four or more physicians.

3 See Harriott, Lieut. John. Struggles Through Life. London. 1807. II. 55. Wansey, the English clothier, tells us that the best houses in Connecticut were inhabited by lawyers. Journal of an Excursion to the United States of America. Salisbury (England). 1796. p. 70.

lawyers.1 While waiting for political preferment, or in the intervals between terms of office, the country lawyer would have had a hard time to make a living if he had relied on his legal work alone. Consequently, he sometimes took up a trade such as that of carpenter or shoemaker,2 but most often made up the deficiencies in his income by farming.3

This partial reliance upon agriculture was equally true of the medical profession. They were, in many cases, men with a smattering of knowledge concerning the effect of certain drugs and herbs on the most common diseases, primarily farmers, who, as Miss Larned says of the doctors in Canterbury, practiced medicine when they had nothing more important to do. The inventory of the estate of a physician of that region shows to what extent he had combined the two occupations. Besides a stock of drugs, medicines and vials, he had one pair of oxen, 13 cows, 15 head of young cattle, 20 sheep, a number of swine, farming tools, hay, etc. It was probably the fact that much of the medical service of the time was being done by poorly educated men who were farmers as well, which caused so much complaint to be made of the inefficiency of the profession at that time.5

The Business Men.

Besides these professional men, there were in the rural villages a small group of men who represented in a way the prototype of what we now call the class of business men. There was the taverner or innkeeper, the country trader, the proprietors of the saw-mills,

'Taking a list of 64 prominent men at this time, including governors, United States Senators and state officials and legislators, whose previous occupation can be ascertained, we find that 36 of these had been lawyers, 13 were merchants, 10 had come into prominence during the Revolution, 3 were physicians, and 2 were craftsmen. Examples of men of prominence who were originally lawyers in country towns are furnished by Uriah Tracy, United States Senator from Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull, the elder, Governor of Connecticut, and Caleb Strong, Governor of Massachusetts.

2 See Neilsen, Peter. Recollections of a Six Years Residence in the United States of America. Glasgow. 1830. p. 182.

3 Advertisements in the country newspapers such as that in the Massachusetts Spy, published in the town of Worcester, issue of July 1, 1807, are good evidence on this point. This advertisement recommends a farm of 23 acres which is offered for sale as a suitable purchase for a lawyer.

4 Larned, Ellen Douglas. History of Windham County, Conn., 2 vols. Worcester (Mass.). 1874-1880. II. 423.

5 See La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Travels, I. 448, and Neilson, Recollections, pp. 188-189.

the grist-mills, the fulling-mills, the tanneries; the village artisans or mechanics, the blacksmiths, the carpenters and joiners, and the cobblers. In a mere numerical consideration these occupations might seem to have formed an important element in the economic life of the community, but, on closer observation, it becomes evident that these, too, were usually only auxillary occupations, by-industries of agriculture.

The New England tavern served a wide variety of purposes and its proprietor must needs be a man of varied talents. If situated on a stage-coach route it provided the clean beds and the wholesome fare which were so much appreciated by travelers.1 Far more important were its services to the townsfolk as a common gathering-place. As a social center it rivaled the meeting-house to whose moral atmosphere it presented a decided contrast. Here much of the political business of the town was transacted; the selectmen's meetings and the sessions of the town court were held regularly in its main room; and at times, in winter, when the meeting-house was too cold, the town meetings held an adjourned session there. It was the scene of many village festivities; the singing school and the dancing school, where the liberal tone of the community permitted such frivolity, met there; on muster days the tavern was the headquarters of the train band. On most of these occasions the tavern bar, where strong liquors were dispensed, was liberally patronized. This feature, too, proved a strong attraction for the village topers and ne'er-do-wells. It was this multiplicity of services to the community rather than the patronage of the infrequent travelers which explains the uniform occurrence of taverns in inland towns. They were, of course, most numerous on the post-roads between New York and Boston, but even in the smallest and most isolated towns at least one tavern could usually be found.3

1 Brissot de Warville discusses appreciatively an inn in Spencer, Mass. Travels, I. 124.

2 See Field, Edward. The Colonial Tavern. Providence. 1897. Also MacMaster, History of the United States. II. 564-565. Adams, C. F. Episodes, II. 783.

3 Chastellux, Travels, I. 50, while traveling in Connecticut, writes of a law which requires public houses at intervals of every six miles on the great roads. Such a law, however, does not appear in the statutes in force in the three states of southern New England at the end of the eighteenth century. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, the local authorities were invested with power to determine the num-, ber of taverns deemed necessary in each town, and to appoint fit persons as keepers. The latter were required to give bonds and pay a license fee. Connecticut Pub