University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
RETROSPECTIVE AND EXPLANATORY.

At this day of comparative abstinence and general sobriety,
one is hardly prepared to receive the accounts that might be
given of the consumption of intoxicating liquors in former
times. In the Old World, drinking was cultivated as an Art;
it was patronized by courtiers, it fellowshipped with rustics;
it belonged to the establishment, and favored dissent; it followed
in the wake of colonial migration, and erected its institutions
in the New World. Contemporary with the foundation,
it flourished with the growth and dilated with the extension of
this Western Empire. Herein comes to pass a singular historical
inversion; what we rigorously denounce as “distilled
damnation,” the Puritans cheerily quaffed under the names of
“Strong Water,” and “Aqua Vitæ,” Water of Life. While

we expel rum from our houses, as a pestilence, an earlier age
was wont to display it with a picturesque effect, and render it
attractive by environments of mahogany and silver.

In Livingston there were five distilleries for the manufacture
of cider-brandy, or what was familiarly known as pupelo.
There was also consumed a proportionate quantity of alcoholic
liquors of other kinds. The entire amount annually drank
among a population of about twelve hundred, could not have
been less than six thousand gallons. It found its way into
every family, loaded many side-boards, filled innumerable jugs;
all denominations of men were alike under its influence. In
the account kept with Parson Welles at Deacon Penrose's,
rum composed at least one half the items. Master Elliman, as
we have seen, was not exempt from the habits of his age. He
drank constantly and at times excessively. To the cheer prevailing
at the Pond he was no stranger; but, on the other hand,
it afforded him no small satisfaction to become a sharer in
their potations. His botanical excursions were enlivened and
relieved by the humor of Pluck and the liberality of his entertainment.
In addition to this there were other causes operating
to bring together these two persons of qualities and manners
in some respects so apparently opposed. On these we must
beg the patience of the reader, while we briefly delay. The
first permanent settlement in Livingston was effected in the
year 1677, at the close of the war of King Philip or Pometacom,
the chief of the Wampanoags. The original inhabitants
came partly from the old colonies; and were reinforced
by migrations direct from Europe. A one-story log-house,
with thatched roof, was the original church, and stood
on the same spot with that to which the attention of the reader
has been called, a tin horn, in place of a bell, summoning the
people to worship. What is now known as the Green early
became the centre of the town, and on the four streets before-mentioned
many of the planters established themselves. The
town underwent and survived the various incidents and vicissitudes
that belong to our national history; Queen Anne's war,
Lovell's war, the Seven Years' war, incursions from the Indians,
drafts of men for the frontiers, small-pox, throat-distemper,
Antinomianism, Newlightism, Scotch Presbyterianism, an attempted
“visit from Whitfield,” settling ministers, the stamp-act,
succession of sovereigns, kings in England, governors at
home, earthquakes, tornadoes, depreciation of currency, taxes,
etc. etc. A period of more exciting interest approached. The
question of a final separation from the mother country engaged

all minds. An organic system was instituted throughout the
country, embracing the states, counties and towns. Committees
of Safety, Inspection, Vigilance or Correspondence, whatever
they might be called, were formed in every village; these cooperated
with the County Committees, which in their turn
became auxiliary to those of the State. “The towns,” say
our historians, “assumed, in some respects the authority of an
individual community, an independent republic. The Committee
met daily and acted in a legislative, executive and
judicial capacity. All suspicious persons were brought before
them, and if found guilty were condemned.” “Numerous
arrests, imprisonments and banishments were made.” “The
Committee was impowered to use military force. Many tories
and their families were expelled the State, and others required
to give security to reside in prescribed limits; and
occasionally the jails, and even the churches, were crowded
with prisoners, and many were sent for safe-keeping to the
jails of neighboring States.” An “Association,” as it was
termed, covenant, or oath, was prepared and offered for the
signatures of the people of Livingston. The sessions of the
court, which had been interrupted elsewhere, received little or
no disturbance in this town. Judge Morgridge, a resident of
the place, who received his commission under the king, and
faithfully administered the old laws of the State, was equally
devoted to the interests of the people. News of the battle of
Lexington had arrived; Tony, the negro barber, fiddler and
drummer, had gone through the streets at midnight, sounding
alarms from time to time. Court week came, and in addition
to such scenes as for many years had characterized that occasion,
trading, huckstering, wrestling, fighting, horse-racing,
multitudes thronging the streets; at the present moment there
assembled greater quantities of people, from Livingston itself,
and the neighboring towns, who were animated by unusual
topics. There was little business for the functionaries of law,
and more for the officers of the people. The County Committee
was in session. Numbers of delinquents were brought from
various parts, and lodged in the jail. The Crown and Bowl
was filled with people, among whom was Pluck. While others
were drinking to the Continental Congress, he toasted the
king; when rebuked, he replied in some wanton language.
This, in addition to other conduct of a suspicious nature,
exposed him to the action of the Committee, before which he
was taken; that body consisting in part of his fellow-townsmen,
Deacon Hadlock and Mr. Gisborne the joiner. The proceedings
in his case may be known by the subjoined extract from
the records.

The next day an event occurred that aroused the people still
more against Pluck. Another individual in town had rendered
himself obnoxious to public sentiment. This was Col. Welch,
a brother-in-law of Judge Morgridge, who had derived his title
for services against the French in the Seven Years' war. He
occupied a large house at the head of the West Street, near
“Deacon Hadlock's Pasture.” He refused to sign the Association,
and used language which gave the people cause to doubt
his patriotism. He declined also accepting a command in the

Continental armies, and intimated that his present commission
could not be supplanted or displaced. He had already been
summoned before the Town Committee, where his replies were
not satisfactory. Further measures were proposed. At this
crisis of affairs, late in the evening, Judge Morgridge, with
some of his family, visited his brother-in-law, and informing
him of what was in progress, suggested that he had no other
alternative but recantation or flight. The Colonel replied that
the former he would not do, and if it came to the latter, that
should be done; and with his family made hasty preparations
for departure. In the middle of the night, he left Livingston,
went to New York, whence he ultimately sailed for Nova-Scotia.
When the two families had indulged those tokens of
regret, speedily finished, which were natural to the occasion,
and the Colonel was on the point of starting, it was discovered
that one horse delayed, and the cause was as soon obvious.
Cæsar, a servant of Judge Morgridge, was found clinging
passionately to Phillis, the servant of the Colonel. Such a
moment for the expression of what they might feel, was certainly
most inopportune, and the two lovers were unceremoniously
separated. The next morning Pluck understanding
from Cæsar what had happened, and withal as we say now-a-days,
endeavoring to make capital out of the fellow's distress,
appeared again on the Green, and more than half in liquor,
made boast of toryism, applauded the conduct of Col. Welch,
and declaimed on the cruelty practised towards the negro.
Already sufficiently odious, he would have done better not to
trifle with an indignant populace. He was declared not only
inimical but dangerous, and by order of the Committee was
confined in jail. Among a multitude of fellow-prisoners he
found one of whom till that moment he had known but little;
this was his townsman and subsequent acquaintance, Master
Elliman. This gentleman, inveterately attached to olden time,
without reverence for the people, and, as his subsequent conduct
would indicate, with no other regard for kings than
consisted in a preference for an old and long-established state
of things over any new projects that might be proposed, possibly
unwilling to have his quiet disturbed, perhaps averse to
receiving dictation from those whose children he had flogged,
or who themselves may have been under his thumb; certainly
not, we have reason to believe, from any conscientious scruples;
this gentleman, we say, received the Committee, who waited
upon him, with an irritating indifference, and refused to sign
the Association. It was considered unsafe to have him at large,
and he was thrown into prison. Here commenced an intimacy
that in the result proved not unfavorable to one as yet unborn,
Margaret. Whatever points of resemblance might exist between
Pluck and the Master, became strengthened by their
confinement together, and their contrarieties were forgotten in
a sense of common calamity. The cells of the jail were
crowded, comforts were not abundant, and whatever relief
could be had from an exchange of sympathies, the convicts
would naturally betake themselves to; and in the result it
appeared that Pluck and the Master became very good friends,
and the visits of the latter to the Pond, originating in the
double cause which has now been related, were in after years
not infrequent. Add to this a deep and ingenuous interest in
Margaret, and we shall understand why he came so often to
her house, and exerted himself so readily for her instruction.
The durance of these two recusants lasted no more than two
or three months. Pluck, as being of less consequence, was
released almost on his own terms. In the Kidderminster
Chronicle appeared the following which relates to the Master: