Robert Love's Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston

Chapter 8. Travelers in Distress

chapter 8  Travelers in Distress ‘‘The man is a mason to traid and verry poor’’; ‘‘she Apears to be a verry Helpless Womon‘‘; ‘‘they say they lost all they had’’; ‘‘he is a young man . . . in distress’’: these traveling folk were among those whom Robert Love flagged as begging, sick, destitute, drunk, dressed in rags, physically disabled , mentally disturbed, old, idling, strolling, thieving, lodging out of doors, or lacking a place of abode. Such strangers made up nearly one-fifth of all parties warned by Love. Most were not locals; they had often traveled from afar by foot. Except for the strollers, men arriving alone predominated . Some came to Boston seeking immediate relief. Others, despite a lame hand or a recent shipwreck experience, found lodging and work, avoiding dependence on the province poor rolls. Still others moved quickly out of town.1 Examining Love’s descriptions gives us a rough portrait of the neediest of Boston’s sojourners. Four types of distressed persons emerge. In one group were those unambiguously displaying neediness: they were begging, their clothes betrayed impoverishment, or they could not afford lodging. A second group made their hardship known by either requesting relief from town officials, such as passage home, or obtaining a stay in the almshouse. Sometimes acting as broker between the needy stranger and the selectmen, Love became well acquainted with the inmates and rhythms of the almshouse . A third traveling type manifested signs such as mental illness, physical handicaps, sickness, and old age that could entail an inability to earn a living and lead to destitution. Fourth, the warner commented on those whom many in his society saw as the immoral poor: drunkards, strollers, idlers, and disreputable types in trouble with the law. Analyzing the stories these diverse strangers told and the life histories that can be generated for some, this chapter illuminates the range of tribulations that could propel Travelers in Distress 135 any member of the lower-middling sort or working poor into homelessness or a roving, property-less existence in the British Atlantic.2 Begging was an unmistakable signal of need. It was also illegal in colonial Massachusetts. Knowing the law, beggars mostly eschewed boldness, pragmatically engaging in less obtrusive mendicancy as long as they could get away with it. One strategy was to broadcast the reason for one’s plight. Mary Miller told Love that two months earlier she had been ‘‘burnt out’’ of her dwelling in a village on the Hudson River. A young man claimed that ‘‘the Owner of the Land where he Lived [at the eastward] Drove him from the place’’ he had occupied. Another tactic was to reassure the warner that one was passing quickly through town. Love wrote of William and Margaret Robinson: ‘‘beging Strolers . . . are Gowing Eastward and promies to sett out the morrow morning.’’ Yet some felt entitled to ask for alms. One elderly, almost naked vagrant declared ‘‘he Would Bege in Spite of anyBody.’’3 Despite the official condemnation of begging, subtly different categories of beggars were present in colonial North American cities. Solo men were observed ‘‘beg[g]ing money,’’ ‘‘beg[g]ing for healp,’’ and begging ‘‘his Bread.’’ That an adult, in Love’s terms, might be ‘‘a complete beggar [and] not able to get his bread’’ implies that others were understood to be begging seasonally, for only part of their income, or as a temporary strategy when in dire straits. Some were identified as permanent beggars whose activity was fairly continuous and practiced beyond Boston. Abial Wood is ‘‘Lame in his Legs with Sores . . . and is Beging from Every Boady he meets,’’ wrote the warner. Peter Barker, a frail man of seventy-three, was observed ‘‘Beging from Door to Door.’’ Love knew that John Davis was hardly alone in going ‘‘aboute the Country Beging.’’ Elderly William Harris had come by land from Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, ‘‘begging all the way.’’4 The warner expressed surprise when he came across a young or ‘‘stout’’ man pleading on the streets for alms or ‘‘all in rags.’’5 People brazen or desperate enough to try begging in Boston’s streets and alleys tended to come from farther afield than the bulk of warned sojourners. The seven reporting that they had been soldiers, whether in the country or the regular service, were all last from a distant town—in Connecticut, the middle colonies, or Quebec. Among solo beggars, only one-quarter had come last from a Massachusetts town, while one-third...