December 16, 2022
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her story about a 1908 Christmas party in Boston that echoed the merriment of Old England. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History
Today I continue my story about the “Ye Olde English Christmasse” celebration that happened in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1908. Residents of the New England area, all members of the Field and Forest Club (including some Mayflower scions) gathered to recreate the ancient rituals of an old English Christmas. It was a night of pure folly and dalliance for the 200 attendees.
To recap: Part 1 covered the Lord of Misrule and the ceremony with the Yule Log. I found some photos of similar celebrations from Christmases past to show more of the spirit of the event. Also check out this video from Forgotten History: A Very Merry Tudor Christmas! | What Was Tudor Christmas Like?
The Boston Herald covered the 1908 celebration.
Here are more details from this article:
Grand Masque of St. George.
After one of the yellow-haired pages had recited a quaint old English ballad, followed the grand masque of St. George and the Terrible Turk. [The old Christmas play of “Saint George and the Dragon” can be read from The Christmas Book.] Delightfully enough, St. George had a remarkable facial resemblance to his famous Donatello prototype, and very stern and splendid he seemed with his glinting shield and sword and strong young arms. The Terrible Turk was all right, too, even if his costume did suggest a crazy quilt and a tam-o’-shanter to the irrelevant.
But the best joke of all was the dragon. He was positively ferocious. Clatter, clatter, clump he came over the stairs and wriggled in at the open door, head and tail wagging, face one big scarlet-lined yawn, and “over all and through all and in all” a combined groan and roar and yowl that completely spoiled the Turk’s dignity, and even set doughty St. George’s shoulders shaking under his weighty shield. It was young Percy Plunkett who “dragoned” it, and as he emerged later red-faced and breathless from his gray shell he was heard to remark: “Gee! I wonder if the real drag[on] had such hard work!”
But English revelers were always hungry folk, and after a little “Spirit of Christmas” fairy had footed it for a few moments the supper pageant was ushered in. Real Christmas cheer was there – a huge boar’s head, a “Christmasse” mince pie, plum pudding, and full tankards. First the pages bore it in all its glory before the assembled multitude, then came the actual feasting.
Meanwhile, upstairs in the gallery was a bit of “Ivanhoe” – the baron at his board, around him retainers and noble adventurers, before him a right merry feast. They were brilliant in red coats and high hunting boots, the baron and his guests, and they jested and drank like true knight crusaders.
Folly Dancers of Robin Hood.
Fitly as a companion piece to this lofty merrymaking came the folly dancers of Robin Hood and his merry men and maids. Scarlett-flowered bodices, caps and overskirts for the girls, brown, leathery doublets and knee breeches for the dwellers in “sweet Sherwood,” and a dance as swift and glad and natural as the daily dance of the leaves in that forest – that was the Robin Hood mumming, for the honor of the most alluringly romantic gentleman that ever lived and laughed in merry England.
And then came the last finishing touch, perhaps the very best of all the old Christmas customs. From that gallery where only a little while before the baron’s courteous jests had rung out, came now very clearly, and at first very softly, but gathering strength from verse to verse, the strains of the old, old Christmas carols that one learns when one is too small to remember how, and that one doesn’t forget ever. “Carol, brothers, carol, carol joyfully,” came the glad refrain. People all through the room below joined softly in the familiar words, the goodbye to the Christmas that was past, the greeting to the Christmasses yet to be. And thus endeth the oldest and, perhaps, the most Christmas-y Christmas in all Boston.
Miss L. Gertrude Howes [daughter of Isaiah Howes and Lizzie Frank Gardner, descendant of Stephen Hopkins, William Brewster, and Thomas Prence. She was a teacher at the Mary Hemenway School in Boston] had charge of the entire program for the evening. Others who took part were: Harold W. Martin, St. George; William P. Edwin, the Turk; Percy Plunkett, the dragon; Joseph Rowe, the harper; Robert John and George Gordon Nilsson, pages [sons of Nils Emil Nilsson and Maude Ella White, descendants of William White and Susanna Jackson]; and James Frederick Sayer Jr., the Lord of Misrule [son of James Frederick Sayer and Cordelia Pease, descendant of John Howland and wife Elizabeth Tilley, John Tilley and his wife Joan Hurst. Sayer was the husband of Isabella Randall Blackman].
Those at the baron’s board included: Robert Johnson, C. C. Littlefield, T. H. Angell, Vernon Field, Edward H. Hagarty, A. F. Newell, George Nilsson.
Robin Hood and his company were taken by: Harry Adams, Stella Adams, Walter Boss, Lillian Watts, Ruth Gray, and Frank Haines.
The carolers were: Francis Elijah Morse [son of James Herman Morse and Mary Elizabeth Vane, descendant of Stephen Hopkins, Thomas Prence, William Brewster, and Thomas Rogers]; Henrik Renstram; Miss Alice Lancaster [daughter of Edward Moulton Lancaster and Anna Winslow Stackpole, descendant of Edward Winslow and wife Mary Chilton]; Miss Annie D. Drowne; Dr. Grille; Arthur F. Newell; Miss Lena Freeman; with Miss Louise Drowne as accompanist. Miss Dorothy Blake was the “Spirit of Christmas.”
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas!!!!
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Note on the header image: carrying the Boar’s Head at the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival, University Christian Church, Fort Worth, Texas. Courtesy of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Corpus Christi, Texas.
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