This was their holiday costume. Their dress for work and wear was "of good substantial homespun. Every household had from two to six spinning-wheels for wool and flax, whereon the women of the family expended every leisure moment. Looms, too, were in common use, and piles of homespun cloth and snow-white linen attested to the industry of the active Dutch maidens. Hoards of home-made stuffs were thus accumulated in the settlement, sufficient to last till a distant generation."
Stolid as we think these old Dutch people, they had their amusements, in which their women participated with much zest. There were "bees" of all kinds,--quilting-bees, husking-bees, apple-bees, and raising-bees; but above all they loved dancing; and, though we may think of them as heavy-footed, it is probable that many of these demure Dutch maidens would "trip it on the light fantastic toe" with as good a grace as their less sedate sisters of the South.
Before leaving the north, one somewhat curious female figure of New York is especially worth noting, as having been associated with one of the most picturesque and sorely maligned characters in our history,--Sarah Bradley, daughter of Captain Thomas Bradley, and herself an Englishwoman by birth. In 1685, she married one William Cox, a man of singular character, whose mother was termed "Alice Cox, alias Bono," for what reason does not appear. Sarah Cox, with whom we are more immediately concerned, was at the time of her marriage a dashing young woman, of handsome face and fine figure, but so illiterate that she could not write her own name, as is attested by the fact that sundry documents bearing her authorization give her mark instead of the usual signature. In later years, however, she seems to have attained sufficient knowledge to sign her name. In 1689, Mr. Cox met with an accident, thus described in a letter of the period: "Mr. Cox, to show his fine cloaths, undertooke to goe to Amboy to proclaime the King, who coming whome againe, was fairely drowned, which accident startled our commanders here very much; there is a good rich widdow left."
John Tuder, who wrote the letter and had no love for Cox, is rather flippant in his treatment of the fatal occurrence; but it seems that "the good rich widdow" was herself hardly inconsolable, for in a very short time she married again, this time one John Oort, who in his turn soon disappeared from the scene, leaving Sarah a double widow and also doubly rich. She was hardly to be more successful in her third marriage than the others, nor did she show much sensibility in the matter; for on' the 15th of May, 1691, she took out letters of administration on the estate of her late husband, and on the 16th of May a license was issued for the marriage of the fair Sarah to Captain William Kidd. Familiar to all is the fate of that redoubtable pirate, as he is generally held to have been,--though pirate he certainly was not,--and it is not convenient here to enter upon details; but there seems to be little doubt that Mistress Kidd exerted a curious, and, as it turned out, fatal influence upon the fortunes of her third husband. It is averred, though it is hardly a matter of history, that her relations with the Earl of Bellamont, Governor of New York, furnished the reason for the choice of her husband as the commander of the expedition which resulted in the accusation of piracy for which he suffered, and that it was her restless ambition which induced him to accept a post which was little to his liking. Be all this as it may, Kidd was hanged; and his widow, after this time prolonging her period of mourning to the unconscionable (for her) time of two years, married Christopher Rousby and settled down to a life free from further matrimonial adventures. She lived to a great age, but never lost her vivacity and assertiveness, and she merits a place in our record for her influence upon the romantic career of the famous--long infamous--Captain Kidd.