Early Americans Outlawed Christmas

Discovery News ^ | Dec. 23, 2003 | By Jennifer Viegas

[vannrox]

Dec. 23, 2003 ? For 22 years, celebrating Christmas was a crime in Massachusetts, where observers of the holiday were subjected to fines and "mince smellers," individuals who were paid to patrol streets to sniff out those who might be baking traditional mincemeat pies around Dec. 25.

America's mid-17th century inobservance of Christmas, which was also practiced in Pennsylvania and parts of the South, is described in "The Book of the Year ? A History of Our Holidays" by Colgate University professor Anthony Aveni.

According to a recent Colgate press release, Aveni credits Protestant reformists for the 1659-1681 law against Christmas. He said they viewed the holiday as "another one of those idol-worshipping religious festivals well worth expunging."

Jack Larkin, museum scholar and chief historian at Old Sturbridge Village, a Massachusetts living museum that recreates life in a small New England town circa 1790-1840, was not surprised to learn of the ban, given the first American Christmas.

Larkin explained that in 1621, Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford granted two men permission to not work on Christmas Day. When the governor later found the men tossing a ball back and forth, Bradford confiscated the ball and reprimanded them, saying they could only stay in the colony if they were "better instructed" about reformist Protestant beliefs.

"The first attempt to celebrate Christmas was squelched, and this seemed to establish the tradition of nonobservance in New England," Larkin told Discovery News.

The 1659 law forbidding Christmas celebrations read as follows:

"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."

Even after the law's repeal, many New Englanders shunned the holiday and its supporters. In 1687, Reverend Increase Mather said Christmas celebrants "are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth ..."

Views were not quite as harsh in New York, where settlers included German and Dutch Protestants who celebrated the December feast day of Santa Claus, and in Anglican Virginia, according to Jim Bradley, public relations manager of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

"Due to the political turmoil in England at the time, Virginia and other colonies were left alone and puritanical laws against the observation of Christmas were not enforced here," explained Bradley.

While many early New Englanders worked as usual on Dec. 25, Bradley said Virginians who could afford it would have attended mass before feasting on such traditional foods as turkey, Virginia ham, rum punch, plum pudding, and the Massachusetts-banned mince pies, followed by singing carols and attending an evening fireworks display.

It was not until the early 19th century that interest in celebrating Christmas resurrected the holiday nationwide.

[vannrox]

The next article on the site is also along the same vein...

Calif. Christmas Trees Carry Disease

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

Dec. 23, 2003 — Christmas trees are bringing home more than holiday cheer in California: some are also bringing disease.

A fungal tree disease called pitch canker has popped up on Christmas tree lots, in landscaping and in native forests of 19 California counties. Christmas trees could spread the disease further.

"This is affecting lots of pines," said plant pathologist Tom Gordon of the University of California at Davis. The disease is not deadly to trees, but can kill limbs and create unsightly and hazardous conditions.

The Christmas tree that is the most worrisome is the fast-growing Monterey Pine, native to California's Central Coast mountains, and a favorite of the "cut-your-own" Christmas tree farms, Gordon said. It's also an important lumber tree in countries around the world and has been considered for listing as a threatened species in its native range.

Christmas tree lots already found with infected Monterey pine trees include those in San Mateo County, north of San Francisco, and the populous southern coastal counties of Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego. So far pitch canker has not made it inland to the Sierra Nevada, said Gordon, and officials would like to keep it that way.

The pitch canker fungus, Fusarium circinatum, gets from tree to tree by hitching a ride on insects, Gordon explained. The fungus usually kills just the limb or area on the trunk where it first infects. Dead limbs then pose the hazard of falling on roads or houses. To help keep the disease from spreading to landscaping trees or forests, Californians are being asked to recycle, chip or compost their trees as soon as they are finished serving as holiday decorations. They are also being asked not to transport trees east past Interstate 5, which roughly divides the coastal ranges from the uninfected Sierra Nevada.

"A good general rule is to keep the trees in the area where they were grown," said Gordon. Even a healthy looking Christmas tree might harbor the disease, he said.

Pitch canker was originally discovered in pine plantations in the Southeastern United States in the 1940s. It was discovered in California in 1986.

"We donâ??t really know where it came from in California," said U.S. Forest Service's Susan Frankel. "It could have come in on firewood, needles, root stock, Christmas trees. Who knows?"

The point now, she said, is to keep it from spreading.

Among the trees vulnerable to pitch canker are gray pine, coulter pine, Torrey pine, ponderosa pine, shore pine and Douglas fir.

[Texas_Dawg]

While many early New Englanders worked as usual on Dec. 25, Bradley said Virginians who could afford it would have attended mass before feasting on such traditional foods

Mass?? How many Catholics were there in 17th century American colonies?

[TheCrusader]

"Early Americans Outlawed Christmas"

Yes, and these same people also burnt 'witches'. I thought we outgrew this nonsense?

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Massachusetts also outlawed lawyers in the early days.

[TheCrusader]

"Mass?? How many Catholics were there in 17th century American colonies?"

Not many, they were still outlawed back then. They basically had to flee to Maryland, but they were killed and persecuted there too.

[bcoffey]

Mass?? How many Catholics were there in 17th century American colonies?

The Eucharist was called "Mass" in Anglican churches, too. In fact, I know some members of the Episcopal church who still use the term.

[sweetliberty]

Hey, maybe we're onto something here. Maybe if Christians make like we want to outlaw Christmas because of pagan connections, then the ACLU will get confused and will insist that we celebrate it. Reverse psychology. Okay, so it probably wouldn't work, but it'd be satisfying to confuse them in any event.

[God is good]

Well I thank God that these windbags are no longer in control. If this article is fact or fiction I do not know, nor do I care to take the time to find out, but I do know that Martin Luther was one of the first people ever to decorate a Christimas tree.

Happy birthday Jesus!!

[Coleus]

I know in 1776 they were celebrating Christmas and General George Washington crossed the Delaware River and surprised the drunk and hung over Hessian soldiers in Trenton, NJ.

[expatpat]

There were a number in Maryland, but Virginia was mostly protestant.

[goodnesswins]

The "foreigners" were celebrating Christmas.....

[expatpat]

.....plum pudding, and the Massachusetts-banned mince pies....

The Brits still enjoy their plum-puddings and mince-pies......

[what's up]

Yes, the drunken spirit is probably why the Pilgrims outlawed Christmas. They were highly disciplined folks who were reacting against the libertinism of the times.

[Snickersnee]

Good God, man read your history! New England and the South were settled by two different religions. The former were "reformers" such as the Pilgrims and Puritans. The South was settled by Anglicans (later called Episcopalians,) who celebrated Mass.

[tiamat]

No "witches" were burnt here. Several were hanged. One was pressed to death with stones.

Tia

[Coleus]

Hey, what up dude?

[Coleus]

And some were Working hard, Freezing and Fighting for Liberty

Christmas 1776



Washington was able to assemble a force totaling about 7,000 by the last week of December 1776. If he was to use this force, he would have to do so before the enlistments expired on December 31. With great boldness, Washington formulated a plan to strike by surprise at the Hessian garrisons at Trenton and Bordentown on Christmas night, when the troops might be expected to relax their guard for holiday revelry. A Continental force of 2,400 men under Washington's personal command was to cross the Delaware at McConkey's Ferry above Trenton and then proceed in two columns by different routes, converging on the opposite ends of the main street of Trenton in the early morning of December 26. A second force, mainly militia, under Col. John Cadwalader was to cross below near Bordentown to attack the Hessian garrison there; a third, also militia, under Brig. Gen. James Ewing, was to cross directly opposite Trenton to block the Hessian route of escape across Assunpink Creek.


Trenton, New Jersey, 26 December 1776. General Washington here matched surprise and endurance against the superior numbers and training of the British, and the Continental Army won its first victory in long months of painful striving. Trenton eliminated 1,000 Hessians and drove the British from their salient in New Jersey. It saved the flagging American cause and put new heart into Washinton's men. Alexander Hamilton's Company of New York Artillery (now D Battery*, 5th Field Artillery) opened the fight at dawn, blasting the bewildered Hessians as they tried to form ranks in the streets.

Christmas night was cold, windy, and snowy and the Delaware River was filled with blocks of ice. Neither Cadwalader nor Ewing was able to fulfill his part of the plan. Driven on by Washington's indomitable will, the main force did cross as planned and the two columns, commanded respectively by Greene and Sullivan, converged on Trenton at eight o'clock in the morning of December 26, taking the Hessians completely by surprise. A New England private noted in his diary for the 26th: "This morning at 4 a clock we set off with our Field pieces and Marched 8 miles to Trenton where we ware attacked by a Number of Hushing and we Toock 1000 of them besides killed some. Then we marched back and got to the River at Night and got over all the Hushing." This rather undramatic description of a very dramatic event was not far wrong, except in attributing the attack to the "Hushings." The Hessians surrendered after a fight lasting only an hour and a half. Forty were killed and the prisoner count was 918. Only 400 escaped to Bordentown, and these only because Ewing was not in place to block their escape. The Americans lost only 4 dead and 4 wounded.



www.americanrevolution.com

[EUPHORIC]

Well I thank God that these windbags are no longer in control

Errrr.... They ARE back in control...

[Snickersnee]

The Pilgrims and Puritans became estranged from communal spiritual life in England (as expressed by the official Church of England) because, by the Elizabethan era, the celebration of the Saviour's birth had become a two-week debauch, a time where the laws against drunkenness and adultery and licentiousness and everything else short of murder were suspended. Any sense on your part that the Christmas season was "holy" would get you laughed out of town. So they headed across the sea to keep Christmas in their own way, even if that meant no celebration at all.

It's funny to think that if Elizabethan Englishmen and women had not made such drunken rutting @ssholes of themselves, there might not have been an America the way we know it.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

The Jesuits opened a mission in Philadelphia in 1733, posing as Quakers. Because of Penn's laws, it was the only place a Catholic mass could legally be celebrated in English in the world.