Coolishguy

English spelling wasn’t even remotely standardized at that time. So phonetic was pretty much all there was

I’m sorry, but the example in your comment is nonstandard usage. The part after the semicolon would typically be an independent clause, whereas the “because” marks yours as a dependent clause.

There are still comma-like uses though. The major one I can think of is as a separator in a list where each element is long, possibly containing commas of its own.

She was always far left, and that fact underpinned pretty much every older video. She has always talked about social and economic issues, and done a damn good job of it.