-titles-

 

The title of Mr. was applied to captains and sometimes to

mates of vessels; to military captains; to eminent merchants;

to schoolmasters, doctors, magistrates, and clergymen; to per-

sons who had received a second degree at college, and who

had been made freemen. The wives and daughters of such

individuals were called Mrs. To be deprived of this address

was deemed a serious degradation.

1631, Sept. 27th. Josiah Plaistow of Boston, for a mis-

demeanor, is sentenced by the Court of Assistants,  “hereafter

to be called by the name of Josias and not Mr., as formerly

used to be.”  The usual appellation of adults, who were not

Mr. and Mrs. were goodman and goodwife before their re-

spective surnames. Taking these terms in their radical mean-

ing, it is not strange that they were sometimes, if not often,

misapplied.

Distinctions of this -sort generally continued, till the colony

was merged in an extensive province, under Joseph Dudley,

1686, when the custom of making and recording freemen

seems to have ceased.  Hence these distinctions gradually

fell into disuse. _

^“When merit pleads, titles no deference claim.  (Broome.)

 

 

 

-MIDDLE NAMES-

 

Scarcely any persons had these names before 1731, when

they began to increase slowly. By 1783 they had become

considerably fashionable, though nothing near so abundant as

at present.