The ministers did not fail in their duty in attempting to march with the magistrates in the restriction and simplification of dress. They preached often against "intolerable pride in clothes and hair." Even when the Pilgrims were in Holland the preachers had been deeply disturbed over the dress of their minister's wife, Madam Johnson, who wore "lawn coives" and busks, and a velvet hood, and "whalebones in her petticoat bodice," and worst of all, "a topish hat." One of the earliest interferences of Roger Williams was when he instructed the women of Salem parish always to wear veils in public. But John Cotton preached to them the next Sunday, and he proved to the dames and goodwives that veils were a sign and symbol of undue subjection to their husbands, and Salem women soon proved their rights by coming barefaced to meeting.
Mr. Davenport preached about men's head-gear, that men must take off their hats, and stand up at the announcement of the text. And if New Haven men wore their hats in meeting, I can't see why they fussed so over the Quakers' broadbrims.
After a while the whole church interfered. In 1769 the church at Andover put it to vote whether "the parish Disapprove of the female sex sitting with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent." In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was voted that it was "an indecent way that the female sex do sit with their hats and bonnets on to worship God." Still another town voted that it was the "Town's Mind" that the women should take their bonnets off in meeting and hang them "on the peggs." We do not know positively, but I suspect that the bonnets continued to grace the heads instead of the pegs in Andover, Abington, and other towns.
To know how the colonists were dressed, we have to learn from the lists of their clothing which they left by will, which lists are still preserved in court records; from the inventories of the garments furnished to each settler who came by contract; from the orders sent back to England for new clothing; from a few crude portraits, and from some articles of ancient clothing which are still preserved.
When Salem was settled the Massachusetts Bay Company furnished clothes to all the men who emigrated and settled that town. Every man had four pairs of shoes, four pairs of stockings, a pair of Norwich garters, four shirts, two suits of doublet and hose of leather lined with oiled skin, a woollen suit lined with leather, four bands, two handkerchiefs, a green cotton waistcoat, a leather belt, a woollen cap, a black hat, two red knit caps, two pairs of gloves, a mandillion or cloak lined with cotton, and an extra pair of breeches. Little boys just as soon as they could walk wore clothes made precisely like their fathers': doublets which were warm double jackets, leather knee-breeches, leather belts, knit caps. The outfit for the Virginia planters was not so liberal, for the company was not so wealthy. It was called a "Particular of Apparell." It had only three bands, three pairs stockings, and three shirts instead of four. The suits were of canvas, frieze, and cloth. The clothing was doubtless lighter, because the climate of Virginia was warmer. There were no gloves, no handkerchiefs, no hat, no red knit caps, no mandillion, no extra pair of breeches. They had "a dozen points," which were simply tapes to hold up the clothing and fasten it together. The clothing of the Piscataquay planters varied but little from the others. They had scarlet waistcoats and cassocks of cloth, not of leather. We are apt to think of the Puritan settlers of New England as sombre in attire, wearing "sad-colored" garments, but green and scarlet waistcoats and scarlet caps certainly afforded a gay touch of color.