" In
Sandwich, also, the parson had a part of every whale that came ashore.
Various gifts, too, came to the preachers. In Newbury the first salmon
caught each year in the weir was left by will to the parson. Judge Sewall
records that he visited the minister and "carried him a Bushel of
Turnips, cost me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a Crown." Such a
high-priced cabbage!
That New England country institution--the "donation party" to the
minister--was evolved at a later date. At these donation parties the
unfortunate shepherd of the flock often received much that neither he
nor the wily donors could use, while more valuable and useful gifts were
lacking.
A very material plenishing of the minister's house was often furnished in
the latter part of the eighteenth century by the annual "Spinning Bee." On
a given day the women of the parish, each bearing her own spinning-wheel
and flax, assembled at the minister's house and spun for his wife great
"runs" of linen thread, which were afterward woven into linen for the use
of the parson and his family. In Newbury, April 20,1768, "Young ladies met
at the house of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, who preached to them a sermon from
Proverbs 31-19. They spun and presented to Mrs. Parsons two hundred and
seventy skeins of good yarn." They drank "liberty tea." This makeshift of
a beverage was made of the four-leaved loosestrife.
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