Mintmaster's Daughter

©Lauritzen 2006

The Mintmaster’s Daughter

            “Mother, the nights are so long when Father is away.”

            “You are right, dear.  These trials have kept your father away from home for too many days.  Come, children, close to the fire.  We won’t feel so lonely.”

            Samuel drew the settle closer to the fire.  Its high back and sides would help keep out the cold.  Elizabeth filled the corn popper and placed it over the fire where she could shake it now and again.  Mother drew the quilt over their laps.  As she began knitting, Samuel begged, “Tell us the story for the blue and violet pieces.”

            “You’ve heard it so many times.  Don’t you tire of it?”

            “No, Mother, we love that story.”

            So Mother began in her soothing voice.

            One Sunday there was a newcomer at meeting.  I wanted to look at him but I didn’t want to get a rap from the tithing-man’s pole.  I kept glancing his way and one time I saw that he was looking at me.  I kept my eyes to myself after that.

            At the end of the Sabbath day, he came to call on your Grandfather Hull.  He introduced himself as Samuel Sewall, a recent graduate of Harvard College.  He wanted to start a law practice in Boston and he sought your grandfather’s support.  Your grandfather was very influential because of his role as mintmaster.

            He returned to our house many other Sunday evenings and soon I realized he was coming to court me.  We’d sit on opposite sides of the fireplace and eat popcorn as we are tonight.  My little brothers and sisters would giggle and sometimes the neighbors would even come over to listen to us talk.

            I thought at first that he wanted to marry me because of my father but then I realized he loved me and I was so taken by his kind manner and gentle smile that I began to love him too.  When we signed the betrothal contract he didn’t even require a dowry.

            We had a civil service performed by the Governor with what seemed like all of Boston in attendance.  Father had insisted that I have a new petticoat to wear over my others.  I worried that I would look far too plump but Father insisted.  He had the linen dyed a lovely blue to go with my red bodice.   My dear friend Betsy, the one you are named after, dear daughter, put flowers on my hood and tied a wool lover’s knot around my waist.  I felt so beautiful standing there beside your father in his violet doublet, leather breeches and scarlet cap.

            You should have seen your grandfather.  His plum-colored coat was fastened with buttons made of pine tree shillings, the coin that made him so well-known in Massachusetts colony.  Your Grandfather Hull was so proud of his shillings and sixpence.  He had created a design that kept people from trimming silver off the edges so the coins always kept the same value.  Some people thought his commission was too large but he really was an honest and respected man.

            “Tell us more about the wedding, Mother.”

            “Sorry, dears, I was thinking about your grandfather.  After we said our vows, the path to our house was strewn with rosemary and flowers.  Wheat was tossed on us as we walked along to ensure we were blessed with children. 

            When we arrived at the house, the hall was filled with people.  There was hardly room to move.  Mother and the servants had been working for days to prepare the food.  Trestle tables were covered with bowls and platters of all kinds of good things---boiled eels, mackerel stuffed with oysters, pork roasted on the spit, succotash stew, baked pumpkin filled with applesauce, huge loaves of bread, cucumber relish, pickled eggs, hasty pudding, pies and many delicacies.

            When he saw us enter, Father called for attention. ‘Welcome to our home and to this wonderful occasion of our daughter’s wedding to the illustrious Samuel Sewall.  Our little Betsy will be an asset to him as his helpmate and the mother of his children. Come, Betsy, stand here by your husband. ‘

            Then Father took the biggest loaf of bread and broke it over my head. Of course, I could feel myself blushing.  I thought I looked like a peony in bloom.  But just then Father started saying the blessing so perhaps no one noticed as they bowed their heads. 

            After the resounding “Amen,” everyone grabbed a napkin, a spoon and knife and got ready to eat.  Because we were the wedding pair, Samuel and I got plates but everyone else just used the everyday ware. The guests shared trenchers and stabbed their knifes to get pieces of meat.  There weren’t enough benches but it didn’t matter as it was the custom then to stand while eating.  The men even kept their hats on.  It was a good thing because Governor Endicott wouldn’t have liked seeing how long my father’s hair was.

            Father had brewed several casks of beer.  Cups and noggins were dipped into the barrels and passed around.  The children drank right along with the adults.  There were many toasts and some people started dancing.  Samuel and I were just getting prepared to dance when we were interrupted by two young men carrying a large balance scale into the hall.  It was the kind used in the warehouses at the docks.  I was really distressed.  I couldn’t understand what was happening.  I’d never seen this at any other wedding I’d attended and I knew enough about your Grandfather Hull to be worried.

            My father took charge and had them put the scale right in the middle of the room.  He bade me come to stand beside it. I didn’t want to but, of course, I had to obey. All eyes turned on me and I could feel the color rising in my cheeks. Then father said, ‘Good daughter, step onto one side of these scales.’

            I could not imagine what my father meant to do.  I thought he was going to weigh me right in front of the entire crowd.  Why would he want to do that?  My father had always treated me with favor so why was he ridiculing me now? Still, he was not one to be disobeyed.  I took hold of the chains that connected the pan to the balance rod.  Everything was so unsteady I thought I was sure to fall.  The men rushed up to hold the pan steady and I took a deep breath and stepped onto it.

            “Ah, Son Sewall, isn’t she a blushing beauty!” Father shouted, embarrassing me even more.

            I looked at my husband’s face. He seemed just as puzzled as I was.  He smiled encouragingly.

            “And, now, men, bring that box from the corner,” Father continued, pointing to a large, square oak chest.  The men tugged at that box trying to lift it off the floor but they could not.  Finally, they had to drag it across the floor to place it in front of him.

With a sweep of his hand, Father opened the chest.  A gasp rose from the crowd.  The box was filled with bright new pine tree shillings.

            Then Father surprised me even more.  He told the men to scoop coins from the chest onto the other pan of the scales.  With each handful the scale shook.  I thought I might  be thrown to the floor so I clung to the chains, trying to hold back tears. More and more coins were added to the pan.  I wanted Father to explain but he just stood there smiling broadly.

            After what seemed like hours, I had another terrible fright.  I felt myself rising off the floor.  Father waved the men aside as I balanced in the air.  Opening his arms wide, he beamed at me.

            “There, Son Sewall” he cried in his rough manner, “take these shillings for my daughter’s dowry.  I know you married her for love but money makes the heart grow fonder. Treat her kindly and thank Heaven for her.  It is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver.”

            The girls sighed.  It was such a good story and they loved hearing Mother tell it but still they wished, “If Grandfather were still alive would he give us our weight in silver?”

Author’s Note:

Parts of this story are based on facts:

•From 1652 to 1683, John Hull was the first mintmaster of Massachusetts Colony. He designed a silver coin that, at some later time, became known as the pine tree shilling.  As compensation for his work, he received one shilling threepence for every twenty shillings coined.  Thus, Hull became the wealthiest man in Boston. 

•Hull’s only surviving child was his daughter, Hannah.  On February 28, 1675, she married Samuel Sewall, a young man who had just received his master of divinity degree from Harvard College.   Rather than entering the ministry, he joined his father-in-law as a merchant.

•There is evidence that John Hull gave the couple £500 in colonial currency as a wedding gift. (Biographer Richard Francis notes that the weight of this amount of coin of 125 pounds (57 kg), may have approximated the bride's weight, giving rise to Nathaniel Hawthorne's legend that the gift was her weight in coins.

•Unusual for their time, neither Hull nor Sewall engaged in the slave trade.  

•For 42 years, Hannah and Samuel had a loving relationship which produced 14 children, only 6 of whom survived past childhood. They raised their children in a caring and supportive way.  Samuel (1678) and Elizabeth (1681) were the eldest son and daughter.

•In 1692 when the children would have been about 12 years old, Sewall was appointed by the Massachusetts governor to serve as one of nine judges of the Salem witchcraft trials, and he was the only judge to publicly apologize later for his participation in those gruesome events. 

•For fifty-six years (1674–1729) Samuel Sewall diligently kept a diary that scholars and historians value for its details about colonial culture, including entries about the weather, births, marriages, arrivals, departures, legal proceedings, and deaths in Sewall's Boston community.  John Hull also kept a diary.

•Puritans did wear colorful clothing.

•The details of the wedding are typical of a Massachusetts Colony wedding of that era.

Parts of the story are fiction:

•There is no recorded documentation that the wedding dowry was determined by having the bride step into a balance scale.

•The conversation between mother and children is feasible based on what is known about Sewall family life.