gs. Clapboards and shingles came in slowly as sawmills
increased, but at first nails and glass were rare luxuries. Conditions
in such seaports as Boston, where ships came and went and higher
standards of living prevailed, must not be taken as typical of the whole
country. The buildings of Boston in 1683 were spoken of as "handsome,
joining one to another as in London, with many large streets, most of
them paved with pebble stone." Money in the country towns was
merchantable wheat, peas, pork, and beef at prices current. Time was
reckoned by the farmers according to the seasons, not according to the
calendar, and men dated events by "sweet corn time," "at the beginning
of last hog time," "since Indian harvest," and "the latter part of seed
time for winter wheat."

New England was a frontier land far removed from the older
civilizations, and its people were always restive under restraint and
convention. They were in the main men and women of good sense, sobriety,
and thrift, who worked hard, squandered nothing, feared God, and honored
the King, but the equipment they brought with them to America was
insufficient at best and had to be replaced, as the years wore on, from
resources developed on New England soil.

CHAPTER V

AN ATTEMPT AT COLONIAL UNION

The men who controlled the destinies of New England were deeply
concerned not only with preserving its faith but also with guarding its
rights and liberties as they defined them, and reverentially preserving
the letter of its charters. For men who wished to sever their connection
with England and to disregard English law and precedent as much as
possible, they displayed a remarkable amount of respect for the
documents that emanated from the British Chancery. In fact, however,
they valued these grants and charters, not as expressions of royal
favor, but as bulwarks against royal encroachment and outside
interference, and in accepting such privileges as were conferred by
their charters, they recognized no duty to be performed for the common
mother, no obligations resting upon themselves to consider the welfare
of England or to cooeperate in her behalf.

The thoughts of these men were of themselves, their faith, and their
problems of existence. The strongest ties were those that held together
the people of a town, closely knit in the bond of a civil and religious
covenant. Next above these were the ties of the colony, with its general
court or assembly composed of