First American Colonists Didn't Use Water
Earliest Settlers Didn’t Consider Water an Aid to Cleanliness
Sometimes it takes the equivalent of a dash of cold water in the face to realize that our ancestors did not do some of the most common things that are part of our every day life.
What was their aversion to water? Then, most European communities had contaminated water supplies. Drinking water caused typhoid fever, jaundice and intestinal ills. People thought it so unclean they seldom washed in it.
Beer Was Substitute for Water
On one of its crossings, the Mary and John carried 1,500 gallons of water (mostly for animals) and 11,000 gallons of beer!
What about the children? They drank ale, too. Drinks served at mealtimes made steady drinkers out of everyone.
Bad Experience at Jamestown
Though the New World had plentiful supplies of pure, healthy water, some early colonists, who had no choice but to drink water, got off on the wrong foot. Jamestown settler George Percy wrote the following in 1607: Our drink, cold water taken out of the river, which was at a [high tide] very salt[y], at a low tide full of slime and filth. [This] was the destruction of many of our men.
Many colonists thought alcohol cured the sick, made the weak stronger, gave new life to the aged and made the world a better place. Writer Ed Crews put it this way: “They tippled, toasted, sipped, slurped, quaffed, and guzzled from dawn to dark.”
Drinking Pattern Defended by Ben Franklin
"If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?" wrote Benjamin Franklin.
Rum was the most popular household drink and it was the base for hot toddies, flip and numerous other household beverages. By the eve of the American Revolution, there were approximately 140 rum distilleries turning out nearly 5 million gallons a year. That was in addition to the 3.78 million gallons imported annually, most of it from the Caribbean islands astride the southern Atlantic crossing route from Europe.
Sources:
Junior Scholastic Magazine, Vol. 109, No. 1, Sept. 4, 2006
Untitled publication of the Winterthur (DE) MuseumRattle-Skull, Stonewall, Bogus, Blackstrap, Bombo, Mimbo, Whistle Belly, Syllabub, Sling, Toddy, and Flip,” by Ed Crews, Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA, (Vol. 29, No. 5, Holiday, 2007 edition)
Search for Passengers of the Mary and John, Vol. 20 (1993), The Mary and John Clearing House, Toledo, OH.
