Subject: Dates: Old and New Style Source: Caleb Butler, History of Groton, Massachusetts, Boston Press of T. R. Marvin, No. 24 Congress Street, Boston, Mass., 1848 p.vii of Preface In dates previous to 1752, there is liability to err by not noticing the difference between old and new style; and from January 1 to March 25, by a difference in commencing the year. That the reader may guard against errors in these dates, and understand how to compute and re- duce any date to our present (1848) reckoning of time, as brief an account of style, and its change from old to new, and of the difference in time of commencing the year, as the nature of the subject will permit, is here given. A tropical year is a natural division of time, being that in which the sun apparently moves from a tropic or equinox around the heavens to the same point again. A civil year consistes of a certain number of days, classed into weeks and months. If the tropical year consisted of an exact number of days, that is, if the sun returned to the tropic at precisely the same time in the day in which it left, the tropical and civil year might and would be forever the same, and the seasons would remain unmoved and fixed to the same months and days. But this is not the case. The civil year must of necessity consist of a certain number of days; but the tropical year is found to consist of about 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 50 seconds. To fix a calendar, by which the two years should coincide as nearly as possible (exactness being impossible) has been a desideratum with astronomers, mathematicians and sovereigns. The numerous abortive attempts made by different nations need not be mentioned. Julius Caesar with the aid of Sosigenes, a famous mathema- tician of his time, was the first to adopt a method nearly correct. Finding that the tropical year consists of about 365 days and 6 hours, he fixed the common year of his calendar at 365 days; and as the frac- tional part of the day, 6 hours, would in four years amount to just one day, he made every fourth year to consist of 366 days, by counting the sixth of the calends of March (Feb.24) twice, hence called Bissextile, or vulgarly Leap-year. Had 365 days, 6 hours, been exactly the amount of the tropical year, the desideratum would have been attained, and the seasons have remained fixed to the same days. As it is, it was the best arrangement of the calendar which hitherto had been made; no error therein was discovered for several centuries. It is still retained by the Russians. This is called the Julian, or Old Style, which commenced 46 years before the Christian Era, the sun being in the vernal equinox that year on the 25th of March. The names of the months in Caesar's calendar were the same as in ours, and his year began as ours, January 1. At length it was discovered, that the assumed year of 365 days, 6 hours exceeded the true tropical year by 11 minutes and 10 or 15 seconds and that thereby the vernal equinox was receding from the 25th of March at the rate of that time annually, amounting to about one day in 130 years. Again ingenuity was applied to corredt the calendar and various propositions made for the purpose, which it is unnecessary to state. Pope Gregory XIII., finding that the feast days of the church were be- ing deranged by the defect in the reckoning, undertook a reform of the Julian calendar. In the year 1583, having called to his aid the most eminent astronomers and mathemeticians of the age, and they finding that the vernal equinox, which happened on the 21st of March in the year 325, when the famous council of Nice was held, had receded to the 11th of March, he ordered ten days to be left out of the month of October in the year 1583, by counting the fifth day the fifteenth. This of course brought the equinox of the next succeeding year to the 21st of March, where it was in the year of the Nicene council, when Easter and other church festivals were arranged. To prevent the recurrence of the recession of the equinoxes in future, Gregory ordered, that three bissextile years in every four hundred thereafter, should be reduced to common years viz. 1700, 1800 and 1900, in the then next four centuries, being a deduction at the rate of one day to about 130 years, the deficiency above stated. And by this arrangement, though not perfectly exact, the civil and tropical years will not vary to the amount of a day for 5,000 years to come. This is called the Gregorian, or New Style. At length, however, prejudice and fear having ceased, or lost their power, the Parliament of Great Britian in 1751, passed an act, adopting the new style, and ordering eleven days (the year 1700 having been reckoned a bissextile, and consequently making the difference one day more than at Gregory's reform,) in the month of September, 1752, to be omitted, by calling the 3d day of that month the 14th. Hence it is evident that to any date made according to the old style, between 1582 and 1700, (1600 being bissextile, according to both reckonings) 10 days must be added to render it new style; (footnote: the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth was on the 11th of December, 1620. Ten days only should be added to make it correspond with new style. By some inadvertence the 22nd instead of the 21st has been celebrated as the anniversary of that event) and since 1700, (that being a common year with Catholics, but bissextile with Protestants) 11 days must be added. The times at which to commence the year have been numerous, and have caused more errors, than the different calendars in other respects. The equinoxes, solstices, certain festivals, and other epochs, have at different times and by different nations been the commencement of the year. Two or three of these only need to be mentioned. The Romans at one time had the year divided into ten months only, commencing with March, so that September, October, November and December had their numerical rank according to their Latin etymology. This year consisted of only 304 days, and the seasons consequently fast removed from their places. Two more months were therefore added, January at the beginning, said to be so called from two-faced Janus, one face looking back upon the old year, and the other forward to the new; and February at the close of the year, afterwards placed between January and March. The number of days in these two months, when added to the year of 304 days, did not make it equal to a tropical year, so that Julius Caesar, when he established his calendar, was under the necessity of adding 90 days to the end of one year, hence called the year of confusion, in order to reduce the seasons to their proper places. The year then commenced January 1. This commencement of the year was not universally adopted. In England, the year at one time commenced at Christmas, at another at the Annunciation, March 25 and finally it was fixed by law in the reign of Henry VIII, at the Annunciation. Historians, however adhered to the 1st of January and thus came the distinction of civil or legal year, and historical year. Hence also originated the practice of double-dating between January 1 and March 25, thus: "Feb. 11, 1731/2." the numerator of the fraction expressing the civil or legal year, and the denominator the historical. This method, if strictly observed, would have plainly indicated the true time; but in many instances we find but a single date, and then we are in doubt, unless we can compare with some other date known to have been in the same year. In general, it is supposed that a single date between Jan 1, and March 25, previous to 1752, indicates the legal year; but it is by no means certain. Another method of dating used by our Puritan ancestors occasions no little perplexity. The heathenish names given to the months, and to the days of the week, were an offence to them; so instead of them they used the ordinals, 1st, 2d, 3d, etc, both for months and days. Thus 10d. 6m. 1667 denoted August 10, 1667, as they commenced the year with March 1. In this however, it is not certain that every clerk was uniform. Some, it is thought, called January the first month, for there are instances of a double date in the year, when in the first or second month. These inconveniences and undertainties were all remedied by the act of Parliament, by which the style was reformed. By that statute the legal was made to conform to the historical year, and to the common usage of the other nations of Europe, as well as to that of their own people, whose almanacs had long before, perhaps always, commenced the year with January 1. It is much to be regretted, that when these reformations were made by authority, the commencement of the year had not been fixed at the vernal equinox, and a disposition made of the days of the months a little different from our present calendar; but a change would now be attended with very serious inconveniences, and perhaps insurmountable difficulty. The compiler will not further extend these prefatory remarks, already perhaps too prolix for propriety, by naming all, who have aided, assisted and encouraged him in the progress of his labor. They are one and all entitled to his sincere thanks and warmest gratitude for their courtesy, assistance and encouragement; and they will please to accept the expression of them in this general form. It has not been thought expedient to encumber the margins with authorities for the assertions in the text, which are not copies. Due care and caution have been taken to insert nothing for which there is not good evidence of its truth. What is stated as tradition, will be appreciated as such; and copies of records, which compose so great a proportion of the volume, cannot with propriety be contradicted. That the following pages may afford some gratification to the antiquarian and genealogist, and not be wholly destitute of interest, instruction and amusement to the general reader, is the hope and desire of the compiler. Caleb Butler Groton, January 1848. Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth