In some communities it was the custom for each family to bring on cold days
its "dogg" to meeting; where, lying at or on his master's feet, he proved
a source of grateful warmth. These animal stoves became such an abounding
nuisance, however, that dog-whippers had to be appointed to serve on
Sundays to drive out the dogs. All through the records of the early
churches we find such entries as this: "Whatsoever doggs come into the
meeting-house in time of public worship, their owners shall each pay
sixpence." Sixpence seems little, but the thrifty and poor Puritans would
rather freeze their toes than pay sixpence for their calorific dogs.
The church members made many rules and regulations to keep the cold out of
the meeting-house during service-time, or perhaps we should say to keep the
wind out. Thus in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1725 it was ordered that the
"several doors of the meeting-house be taken care of and kept shut in very
cold and windy seasons according to the lying of the wind from time to
time; and that people in such windy weather come in at the leeward doors
only, and take care that they are easily shut both to prevent the breaking
of the doors and the making of a noise." In other churches it was ordered
that "no doors be opened to the windward and only one door to the leeward"
during winter weather.
The first church of Salem built a "cattied chimney twelve feet long" in its
meeting-house in 1662, but five years later it was removed, perhaps through
the colonists' dread lest the building be destroyed by a conflagration
caused by the combustible nature of the materials of which the chimney was
composed.
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