Category Archives: 18th century

1744: Long Island septuagenarian jumps “upon his bum”

Alexander Hamilton was a colonial American doctor, traveler and writer, and no relation to the American revolutionary and featured character of modern musicals.

Born in Scotland in 1712, Hamilton was educated at the University of Edinburgh where his father, Reverend William Hamilton, was an influential academic. In 1739, Hamilton emigrated to Maryland and started his own practice in Annapolis.

In 1744, after a period of ill health, Hamilton embarked on a tour of New England, riding on horseback to Maine and back. During this four-month sojourn he recorded his experiences of the colonial towns and people he encountered. During one overnight stay at Brookhaven, a hamlet on Long Island, Hamilton met a septuagenarian named Smith who claimed to be looking for work as captain of a pirate ship, despite having no previous experience. According to Hamilton:

“He showed us several antic tricks, such as jumping half a foot high upon his bum, without touching the floor with any other part of his body. Then he turned and did the same upon his belly. Then he stood upright upon his head. He told us he was 75 years of age and swore damn-his-old-shoes if any man in America could do the like.”

Hamilton later returned to his practice in Annapolis and married into the powerful Dulany family. He became a respected physician, popular for his forthright but easy nature and his dry wit. After serving briefly in the Maryland assembly, Alexander Hamilton died in 1756.

Source: Dr Alexander Hamilton, Itinerarium, 1744. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1709: Virginian gent forces boy to drink “a pint of piss”

William Byrd II (1674-1744) was a colonial lawyer, diarist and plantation owner, considered by many to be the founder of Richmond, Virginia. Byrd was born in the colonies but educated in Britain, where he studied law and obtained membership of the Royal Society. In 1705, he returned to the colonies after his father’s death.

Back in Virginia, Byrd inherited 1,200 acres, the largest private holding in the area. He also married Lucy Parke, the beautiful daughter of another prominent British colonist. The two were sincerely fond of each other but quarrelled often, after which they generally made love (Byrd religiously recorded their sexual encounters as either “rogering” or “flourishing”).

A staunch traditionalist, Byrd considered himself the lord and master of his plantation. He had no qualms about dispensing immediate and often brutal justice to those who disobeyed or displeased him. This included children, servants, slaves and even animals:

“July 2nd 1720… I took a walk around the plantation and shot an old dog with an arrow for flying at me…”

“July 23rd 1720… Jack told me of some horses that had destroyed a hogshead of tobacco and I gave him orders to shoot them as not being fit to live…”

Probably the worst to suffer from Byrd’s wrath were two of his slaves: a houseboy named Eugene, aged around 11 or 12, and a teenaged maid, Jenny. Byrd’s diary records the dispensation of several punishments:

“February 8th 1709… I ate milk for breakfast. I said my prayers. Eugene and Jenny were whipped. I danced my dance. I read law in the morning and Italian in the afternoon…”

“June 10th 1709… In the evening I took a walk around the plantation. Eugene was whipped for running away and had the bit put on him. I said my prayers and had good health, good thought and good humour…”

“September 3rd 1709… I ate roast chicken for dinner. In the afternoon I beat Jenny for throwing water on the couch…”

“December 1st 1709… Eugene was whipped…”

“December 16th 1709… Eugene was whipped for doing nothing…”

Even more inhumane was Byrd’s response to Eugene having wet his bed:

“December 3rd 1709… Eugene pissed abed again for which I made him drink a pint of piss…”

“December 10th 1709… Eugene had pissed in bed for which I gave him a pint of piss to drink…”

Byrd’s diary does not record whose urine was served up to the unfortunate houseboy.

Source: Diary of William Byrd, 1709-20. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1739: Mrs Stephens receives £5,000 for snail recipe

In June 1739, the British Parliament passed a private member’s bill granting Joanna Stephens a gratuity of £5,000, the equivalent of more than £8 million in today’s currency. The reason for this princely sum? Mrs Stephens claimed to have a recipe for dissolving bladder stones and was willing to share it for a hefty fee.

Bladder stones, or cystoliths, are caused by dehydration that facilitates high mineral concentration in one’s urine. In the 18th century world, where water was fetid and potentially deadly, men quenched their thirst with beer, wine and spirits, making bladder stones a common ailment.

Mrs Stephens announced her “dissolving cure for the stones” in 1738 and demanded £5,000 to share it. A public subscription raised only one-third of this amount, so she took her request to Westminster. Despite Mrs Stephens being the daughter of a landed gentleman with no medical training, some MPs took her seriously and pushed her request through parliament.

Their enthusiasm seems even more incredible when Stephens’ recipe was unveiled:

“My medicines are a powder, a decoction and pills. The powder consists of eggshells and snails, both calcined [dry-roasted]. The decoction is made by boiling some herbs, together with a ball which consists of soap, swine cress and honey in water. The pills consist of snails calcined, wild carrot seeds, burdock seeds, ash seeds, hips and hawes, all burned to a blackness, soap and honey.”

The £5,000 did come with conditions. Before payment was made, Stephens’ recipe was tested for several months on four men, all of whom suffered from bladder stones. These trials were overseen by a panel of 28 trustees, including the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In March 1740, a majority of the trustees declared that Stephens’ recipe had fulfilled its promise and was capable of dissolving bladder stones. Stephens accepted her £5,000 and withdrew to spend it, while doctors quibbled over whether her recipe had any real value.

Stephens returned to private life and was never heard from again; she died in 1774. Modern historians suggest she was either a fantastic charlatan or a lucky beneficiary of government stupidity.

Source: The London Gazette, Saturday June 16th 1739. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1726: Swift calls for 500 “shitting colleges” in London

Best known today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was one of the 18th century’s leading authors of satire and whimsy.

In 1726, Swift published a brief essay proposing the construction of communal lavatories around London. His rationale was simple: in a city with very few public toilets, who hasn’t as some point been struck by a sudden diarrhea and ended up fouling their clothing?

“There is nobody, I believe, who [has not been] attacked in the streets by a sudden and violent motion to evacuate… The women fly to shops where, after cheapening something they have no need to buy [they] drop the greatest part of their burden on the floor or into their shoes… While we unhappy wretches hurry to some blind alehouse or coffee house where… the fierce foe, too violent to be resisted, gains the breach and lodges itself on our shirts and breeches, to our utter confusion, sorrow and shame.”

To prevent this common predicament, Swift called for the erection of public toilets in various locations around London. He called for the formation of a public corporation called the Necessary Company, to collect subscriptions and organise the erection of “500 shitting colleges”. He even offered detailed architectural suggestions: the “colleges” should be constructed of Portland stone, decorated with artwork and adorned with marble statues, each “expressing some posture, branch or part of evacuation”.

The interiors of Swift’s proposed facilities would be even more lavish:

“…The area to be paved with marble, with a basin and fountain in the middle… the cells [cubicles] to be painted in fresco with proper grotesque figures and hieroglyphics… the seats to be covered with superfine cloth, stuffed with cotton… the floor to be overlaid with turkey carpets in winter time and strewn with flowers and greens in summer.”

These “shitting colleges”, Swift wrote, would cost twopence per visit. Each facility would be manned a “waiter” and available from five in the morning to eleven at night. No person would be permitted to occupy a cubicle for more than half-an-hour, or to daub the walls with their “natural paint”. A large collection of books should be available for those who like to read “while they are at stool” – however clean cloth should also be on hand, lest visitors use the pages to deal with “the issue of their guts”.

Source: Jonathan Swift, “Proposals for Erecting and Maintaining Publick Offices of Ease within the Cities and Suburbs of London and Westminster”, 1726. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1779: Miss Nangle spontaneously combusts near Uttoxeter

In April 1779, a young Staffordshire woman, Miss Nangle, set out to walk from her Uttoxeter home to nearby Doveridge. A mile into her journey, Miss Nangle smelled smoke and discovered that the back of her skirt was in fire.

When her attempts to damp down this fire failed, she ran to douse herself in a nearby pond. But by the time Miss Nangle reached the water her clothing was fully ablaze, the flames reaching “an alarming height”. Severely burned, Miss Nangle was carried back to Uttoxeter and given medical assistance, though she was “without hope of recovery”. She lingered in agony for five weeks before dying on June 2nd.

According to Miss Nangle herself, the fire was ignited by a small spying-glass she was carrying in her pocket:

“It was a very hot day and it is supposed the reflection of the sun upon the glass set some part of her clothes on fire… She persisted to the last that the fire began in her pocket where the spying-glass was… Her death could not otherwise be accounted for, no lightning having been observed that day.”

Source: The Monthly Mirror, vol. 7, 1779. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1704: Dr Marten’s pregnancy test: look for sea monkeys

In his controversial 1704 text Gonosologium Novum, English surgeon John Marten wrote extensively on matters of sexuality, conception and pregnancy, drawing on medical writers from Hippocrates to Ambroise Pare. Marten mentions several methods for “discovering a woman to be with child”, including:

“…putting the woman’s urine in a [tightly sealed] glass for three days… and then straining it through a fine linen cloth, wherein if she be with child, you will find many small living creatures.. and that by putting a green nettle into the woman’s urine and covering it close and letting it remain therein a whole night, if she be with child you will find the nettle next morning to be full of red spots…”

Source: John Marten, Gonosologium Novum, or a New System of All the Secret Infirmities and Diseases: Natural, Accidental, and Venereal in Men and Women, 1704. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1703: Newcastle woman commits suicide by scissors

Elizabeth Sharper was an old woman living in Sidgate, Newcastle. In her younger years she committed fornication with a married man, carrying and delivering his child.

Despite getting on with life and being “well respected by her neighbours”, Elizabeth was deeply affected by her earlier transgressions. In her late 70s she fell into a “deep despair”, apparently caused by remorse and grief over the loss of her illegitimate child decades before. She confessed to “bearing a bastard” and told others that the child was snatched from her at birth and probably murdered.

In the summer of 1703, Elizabeth took her life in a particularly horrific fashion. According to local records she:

“..ripped up her belly with a pair of scissors and pulled her bowels out with her hand… her puddings came out and lay on each side of her… A surgeon put them in their place again and sewed up her belly.”

Elizabeth survived for several days with her “reason and senses” intact, though she was undoubtedly in agony. She was buried in the graveyard of St Andrew’s in August 1703.

Source: Register of Burials, St Andrew’s Church, Newcastle, 1703. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1779: James Woodforde treats a fever with gin and a pond

The diaries of Anglican clergyman James Woodforde are one of the 18th century’s best known primary sources. Woodforde, a parson in Weston, just outside Norfolk, penned regular entries in his diary for more than 44 years.

Unlike similar documents, Woodforde’s diaries contain nothing scandalous, saucy or incriminating. He never married nor entertained the thought, choosing instead to live with his niece. Most of Woodforde’s entries are concerned with the goings-on in his parish, such as births, deaths and marriages, visitors to the rectory, and the lavish meals he attended with other clergymen. He also made regular observations about the weather, mentioning after one cold night that all the chamberpots in his house had frozen.

Woodforde also mentioned whenever someone close to him was unwell. When his niece Nancy fell ill with a fever, the parson consulted his doctor and was given a complicated procedure involving emetics, warm water, rhubarb, laudanum, bark and powders. But when his servant boy developed the same symptoms, Parson Woodforde’s approach was much simpler:

“My boy Jack had another touch of the ague about noon. I gave him a dram of gin at the beginning… and pushed him headlong into one of my ponds and ordered him to bed immediately… he was better after it…”

Source: James Woodforde, The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802, May 22nd 1779, March 13th 1784. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1796: Rhode Islanders ward off disease with corpse-burning

In February 1796, Stephen Staples, a farmer in north-eastern Rhode Island, lobbied the Cumberland town council for permission to exhume the body of his daughter, who died sometime in the previous year:

“[Staples] prayed that he might have liberty granted unto him to dig up the body of his daughter, Abigail Staples, late of Cumberland… in order to try an experiment on Livina Chace, wife of Stephen Chace… sister to the said Abigail… which being duly considered it is voted and resolved that the said Stephen Staples have liberty to dig up the body of the said Abigail, deceased, and after trying the experiment as aforesaid that he bury the body of the said Abigail in a decent manner.”

The ‘experiment’ Staples had in mind involved burning his daughter’s body in the presence of Livina Chace and other family members, so they might stand in and inhale the smoke. This ritual was intended to drive off vampiristic spirits, thus sparing family members from whatever illness had claimed the deceased.

Extant sources reveal at least nine cases of corpse exhumation and burning in Rhode Island and Connecticut in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Probably the best known example was carried out by Captain Levi Young, who settled in Rhode Island after his discharge from the army.

Young became a successful farmer while his wife Anna bore him eight children in the space of 15 years. In the winter of 1827 Young’s eldest daughter Nancy became seriously ill with consumption. She deteriorated over several weeks and died in April, aged 19. Shortly after Nancy’s death other members of Young’s family, including his second child, Almira, developed similar symptoms.

On advice from elderly locals, Young exhumed Nancy’s body and burned it – while his surviving family members stood in the billowing smoke.

Source: Cumberland Town Council minutes, February 8th 1796. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1799: Elizabeth Drinker has her first bath for 28 years

Elizabeth Drinker (1734-1807) was a Philadelphia wife, mother and prolific diarist, keeping a chronicle that spanned almost 50 years. In 1761. she married Henry Drinker, a prosperous Quaker merchant. Together they had nine children, five of whom survived into adulthood.

Henry Drinker was fond of two things: bathing and keeping up appearances. In June 1798, he followed the example of other well-to-do Philadelphians and had a bathhouse erected in his backyard. This outbuilding cost him almost five pounds, a large sum for the time. It featured a wooden floor, a deep tin bath and a new-fangled shower head, powered by a hand pump.

The new addition proved popular with the Drinker household as Henry, his children and the family’s servants all took to bathing regularly. Elizabeth Drinker, however, was not so keen. She did not use the bath until July 1st 1799, more than 12 months later, writing that:

“I bore it better than I expected, not having been wet all over at once for 28 years past.”

The recollection of her last bath was accurate: it can be traced by to June 30th 1771, when the family was visiting Trenton, New Jersey:

“[Henry] went into the bath this morning… Self went this afternoon into the bath, I found the shock much greater than expected.”

Elizabeth visited the Trenton bathhouse again two days later but “had not courage to go in”. While Mrs Drinker did not like taking baths, she was not averse to forcing them on her servants. In October 1794 she reported that the family’s slave, “black Scipio”, had acquired lice. She ordered that Scipio be:

“…stripped and washed from stem to stem, in a tub of warm soap suds, his head well lathered and (when rinsed clean) a quantity of spirits poured over it. [We] then dressed him in girl’s clothes until his own could be scalded.”

Elizabeth did eventually become more comfortable with using the bathhouse. In August 1806 she reported taking a bath – after which the entire household followed her, all using the same water:

“I went into a warm bath this afternoon, H.D. [Henry] after me because he was going out, Lydia and Patience [the Drinkers’ maids] went into the same bath after him, and John [Henry’s manservant] after them. If so many bodies were cleansed, I think the water must have been foul enough.”

Source: Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, June 30th 1771; July 1st 1771; October 2nd 1794; July 1st 1799; August 6th 1806. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.