Tuesday 29 October 1661

Annotations

• N daniel on Fri 29 Oct 2004, 11:07pm. Flag this

  …and with my beaver….

  I presume this is a beaver pelt something he is refering to. all decked out and ready to go!

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 29 Oct 2004, 11:09pm. Flag this

  “my beaver”
  from America?

• N moon_custafer on Fri 29 Oct 2004, 11:21pm. Flag this

  I believe he means his hat - the best felt for hats was made from processed beaver furs . I think they got them second-hand from the natives once the guard hairs had worn off the pelts, or something. (I’m Canadian, and this came up in history class a lot when I was a kid, but it’s been a long time.) I do recall that the later stage of the felting process, once the fur was brought to England, involved mercury, hence the saying “mad as a hatter” - they generally did get brain damage after a while.

  Poor hatters - they went nuts to make Sam’s new hat, and he didn’t even get to party in it.

• N Glyn on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 12:02am. Flag this

  If you enter “beaver” into the search engine at the top of the page, you find that he bought a beaver hat in June which cost him 85 shillings (!), so presumably it was that one.

• N RexLeo on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 02:15am. Flag this

  “…My mind not pleased with the spending of this day, because I had proposed a great deal of pleasure to myself this day at Guildhall.”

  Poor Sam; energetic youngster done in by two old party poopers.

• N Kate S on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 02:40am. Flag this

  A nice, if overwhelming, description of how to make a beaver hat
  http://www.whiteoak.org/learning/furhat.htm

• N Stolzi on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:08am. Flag this

  Sam’s gear

  I’m wondering what “half cloth stockings” were. Perhaps only part of them was knitted and the rest sewed from cloth?

• N vicente on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:16am. Flag this

  Lord Mayor is [1661] Sir John Frederick. He replaces Browne, father in Law to J. Evelyn

• N vicente on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:18am. Flag this

  “… walking round about the Cross, and offering something at the altar….” A tinge of Roma raising it’s head.
  

• N vicente on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:27am. Flag this

  Not all of the Crowd [Turba] [Mob or vulgar {vulgatus} lot ]may have not liked all that ostentation of wealth and old memories of the good old days, comeing to light and the Old Boys have a twinge of guilt of the parts they played. [not every one forgets the troubles. “…because of the crowd…”

• N vicente on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:29am. Flag this

  so nicely put “…should have been merry, but their wine was so naught, and all other things out of order, that we were not so, but staid long at night…”

• N vicente on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 03:34am. Flag this

  “they got them second-hand from the natives once the guard hairs had worn off the pelts” No, No, they are preloved and no longer required for warmer season, no place to hang them,let the strangers have our leftovers, then get new ones for coming out season , so more civilised just like the smart set.

• N Bullus Hutton on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 06:15am. Flag this

  “should have been merry, but their wine was so naught, and all other things out of order, that we were not so”
  Old Sam can be so completely dashed by the failure of a fun evening: here he was decked out in his best stockings and beaver hat, with his invitation to the Mayor’s Feast, and then his two William buddies say Hey forget it, it’s going to be absolutely packed out, so they tank the idea and he goes home for dinner, later tries to salvage his expectations by meeting up with the gang down at the Dolphin, only to find that “their wine was so naught” (umm, his buddies didn’t order any rounds, or was the quality just so bad?) and so he goes home with his “mind not pleased with the spending of this day” particularly since he had “proposed a great deal of pleasure” to himself today.

• N Glyn on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 11:34am. Flag this

  Poor Sam. He’s always desperate to see new things, this was something very special and yet he wasn’t allowed to go. I’m sure he did not reveal his feelings to the others but he must have been fuming inside.

  By “the Lord Mayor’s feast” I take it that he means the Lord Mayor’s Show, which is now held every year on the second Saturday in November, i.e. 13 November in 2004.

  In it, the newly elected Lord Mayor (and the result of the election is never in doubt), parades around the City to show himself to the people and pledge the allegiance of the City to the monarch - which is why the custom lapsed during the Commonwealth. There are always hundreds of thousands of spectators and it ends with a big fireworks display, so should always be visited if you ever come to London in any November.

  Here are a couple of links:

  http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/index.shtml

  http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/proc/order/

• N Bob T on Sat 30 Oct 2004, 01:36pm. Flag this

  Beaver
  It’s obvious that there aren’t any traders or trappers in this group :-)
  Sam’s hat was almost certainly made from a Canadian beaver, because by 1600 most of the European beaver had been wiped out. It you want to learn more, just google “Hudson Bay Company”.

  I’m not surprised that his hat was so expensive; a beaver pelt commanded top dollar, pound, whatever. To own one would have been a real status symbol, and one that everyone could see.

• N dirk on Sun 31 Oct 2004, 12:05am. Flag this

  Evelyn was there too!

  His diary entry for today:
  “I saw the Lord Major passe in his Water Triumph to Westminster being the first solemnity of this nature after 20 yeares:”
  

• N Pedro. on Sun 31 Oct 2004, 09:41am. Flagged

  “but their wine was so naught, and all other things out of order

• N vicente on Sun 31 Oct 2004, 09:07pm. Flag this

  dust cart or a case of supplying the gardeners with life giving food.
  that olde saw: where there be dust, there be muck, then thee can make some brass.
  “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.” A sir Francis Bacon quote :
  or should it be :”Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread”

  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/francis_bacon.html
  

• N Glyn on Mon 1 Nov 2004, 10:49pm. Flag this

  Beaver hat

  There is an entry for “beaver” in the Glossary:

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/background/?c=glossary

  but not much information. Perhaps some of these entries should be added there before we forget about them.

• N Patricia on Sat 22 Jul 2006, 09:13pm. Flag this

  The fur trade has by now shifted into high gear in Canada, from the French settlements along the St. Lawrence River (Stadacona [Quebec] and Hochelaga [Montreal]) This is why the beaver is Canada’s National Animal: the country was explored by French fur-traders seeking to fill the enormous demand for beaver fur to make felt hats for Europeans, which demand went on for a long, long time.

• N Tony on Thu 9 Oct 2008, 05:25pm. Flag this

  It seems that the link information shown, when placing the cursor over the words ‘Lord Mayor’s feast’ is incorrect. The Mayor at the 1661 feast was Sir John Frederick [who happens to be my 9th Great-Grandfather] and not Sir Richard Browne who was Lord Mayor Of London in 1660. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

• N cgs on Fri 10 Oct 2008, 08:15pm. Flag this

  if you go to the link you will find the list of the yearly changes in the Lord Mayor and see that you be rite.