Colonial American Life: A Puritan Fisherman's Journal

Introduction: Family and Life in Colonial Boston

Polly was pregnant again — or so it seemed. It felt like only yesterday that she gave birth to Sheila, our firstborn, back in 1769. Two years later, that baby girl was learning to walk, and Polly and I were pleased to be parents all over again.

I was 28 years old when Molly, my second child, was born. Up until that time I had lived in Massachusetts for nearly all my life. Back then I was a fisherman, both by choice and by birth. My family had settled in Boston from England when the territory was still wild, but things were considerably better by 1771. At the time, Boston was one of the largest cities in the American colonies, and I loved it dearly.

My father was a fisherman and taught me the trade when I was about nine or ten years old. There is a peaceful calm I get from being out on the water, hauling in fish. It provided us a great living in those days, especially owing to the triangular trade that formed such a large part of the economy in this part of the country. We provided maritime goods — fish and whale oil mostly, although I had dabbled in the handling of grains on some nearby farmland as well — that were sent to the old country, which shipped back manufactured goods. My cousin Betsy told me that parts of Africa and certain countries in the West Indies were also involved in the trade, contributing rum, sugar, and slaves.

Fishing, Trade, and Puritan Recreation

I got serious about fishing as an industry about five years before Molly's birth, when Polly and I first got married. We wed right there at the church on the corner of Grove and Chestnut. Everyone in the family, and most of our Puritan friends throughout the city, were there that day. But fishing was also a great source of recreation for me. Indeed, one of the acceptable forms of Puritan recreation has always been fishing (Daniels, 1991, p. 15).

The triangular trade was central to life in colonial New England. Our maritime economy depended on the exchange of fish, whale oil, and other goods with England and the broader Atlantic world. This commerce shaped not only livelihoods like mine but also the social fabric of towns like Boston, where tradesmen, merchants, and fishermen all depended on one another.

Religion and Community in Puritan Boston

Religion was really important in this town, and people took it seriously — especially after the Great Awakening a couple of decades earlier (Lambert, 1992, p. 185). Polly and I, however, knew we had nothing to worry about. We first met in church, where she sang in the choir and I helped with the Sunday school programs on weekends. I first learned to read by attending Sunday school, and I believe it is important to give back to others who might need that same skill. After I finished with my letters, I could have gone on to Harvard — it was certainly close enough. But I preferred the peace and relative solitude of the ocean and fishing. I would have hated to be confined to an office all day, working at a newspaper or some other desk job.

My involvement in the Puritan church back in Boston always meant a great deal to me, even before I met my wife there. In many ways, the Puritan church served as the social and political center of Boston in those days. My mother's brother was the pastor for a long time before his knees gave out. The values of the Puritan religion played an important part in my life and helped to keep the town organized and relatively calm — at least more so than in some other cities I had visited or heard about (Brauer, 1954, p. 103). Being their firstborn child — I have a baby sister and two younger brothers — I essentially grew up in the church. I truly believe that I learned good values there that helped make me the man I am today.

Furthermore, in those times, the church had a tremendous influence on how people acted and were governed. The concepts of religious freedom that came to characterize later eras were not much present in the Puritan community I grew up in. People had to adhere to the government and the rules of the church, or leave.

References

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Daniels, B. C. (1991). Did the Puritans have fun? Leisure, recreation, and the concept of fun in early New England. Journal of American Studies, 25(1), 7–22.

Governors of Massachusetts. (1768). Massachusetts Circular Letter to the Colonial Legislatures. Yale University's Avalon Project. Retrieved from

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