Unlike colonial Massachusetts, New York had no sumptuary laws. However, clothing or rather accessories, could still be subject to legal action. In 1673 the residents of Manhattan found themselves under a new penalty; should their children be “caught on the street playing, racing and shouting, previous to the last preaching” the authorities were allowed to confiscate the hat or upper garment from the child. Parents could retrieve the items by paying a fine.

 

 

 

 

 

Hats and caps an important accessories for protection from the elements, most people would have owned at least one. Because of their ubiquitous nature, hats appear in the court records of early New York with some frequency. People were charged with cutting another’s hat, knocking the hat off the head of a foe during a fight, and taking a hat from another man’s head and nailing it to a post, to name but a few infractions.  Messack Martens got in trouble for stealing cabbages while drunk. His neighbors knew it was him because he left his hat behind.

 

 

Details, from watercolors by Gesina ter Borch, 1648. Rijksmuseum.