Note 54 — Chapter 3 OF THE PLANTING OF MASTER WESTON’S COLONY AT WESSAGUSSET, AND OF SUNDRY EXCURSIONS AFTER CORN.

“It is almost incredible”, says Roger Williams, “what burthens the poor women carry of corn, of fish, of beans, of mats, and a child besides.” Gookin says, “In their removals from place to place, for their fishing and hunting, the women carry the greatest burthen.” And Wood says, “In the summer they trudge home two or three miles with a hundred weight of lobsters at their backs; in winter they are their husbands’ porters to lug home their venison.” See Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 149, iii. 212, and Wood’s New England’s Prospect, part ii. ch. 20.