I ran across this quote by one of my ancestors on geneology.com.
What does he mean by “bound out”? I assume it doesn’t mean sold, as this is a white guy and it was in Pennsylvania. I was thinking maybe it’s an apprenticeship but four years old seems awfully young for something like that.
Quick Google: here.
You are correct, it is apprenticesship - think about Oliver Twist - he was ‘bound out’ by the beedle to an undertaker at [I think, I would have to go back and reread it] something like 6 years old.
Children were treated as miniature adults, kids started doing small tasks around the house at 4 to 5 years old, and were effectively miniature adults by 10 or so. [in general if a kid survived childhood illnesses and whatever diseases were going around until they hit 5, they generally survived well into adulthood]
So the progression would frequently be birth-5 at home as a child, 5-15 apprentice, 15-20 or 25 journeyman, 25 and up lesser master or full master and owning their own business and probably married or considering marriage. A frequent way to get mastery and a business was to marry your masters widow … makes me wonder if there was a sneaky trade in assassination going on in some large cities. Guilds were very restrictive over membership in many fields.
And just because you had a farm didn’t mean that you didn’t get bound apprentices, that is what ‘hiring fairs’ were all about. Maids of all work, dairy maids, scullerys, houseboys, stock boys [livestock that is] any other job that needed little but a healthy body and few skills could be bound at a hiring fair.