Note 560 — Chapter XII · OBLIGATORY CIVIL MARRIAGE IN THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

Adams, Some Phases of Sexual Immorality, 33. Mr. Adams, however, while pointing out the "singular and to me unaccountable, fact" that traces of bundling, found so widely in the New England colonies, have not yet been discovered in England, thinks that it "could hardly have found its way as a custom" from Holland or the other countries named; and he mentions, by way of supporting his conclusion, its great prevalence in Cape Cod where, according to Palfrey, until about 1825, "there was a purer strain of English blood to be found ... than could be found in any county of England." But wherever the Dutch settled the custom of bundling was tenacious, lasting in Pennsylvania at least until 1845: Earle, Customs and Fashions, 63: and in New York at least until 1804: Stiles, op. cit., 111.