Month: February 2014

February 8, 1851

Spool

Feb 8th Saturday  Worked about house all the forenoon

sweeping & dusting.  Swept & dusted the parlor

ready for the Sewing Circle.  Put the closets in order &c.

Have a very bad cold and this afternoon took a warm

bath in hopes that it would benefit me but it is much

worse for it.  Mr Ames has been to Boston to day

and brought me a case of Scissors a present from Mr

Benson & 19 spools of Coats cotton  Very cold

Oakes Ames made his usual business trip into Boston today and brought home scissors and thread for his sewing wife.  Nineteen spools of Coats cotton thread, in fact, all of which Evelina could probably use, being an excellent and dedicated needlewoman. It’s just possible, though, that those nineteen spools of thread were intended for the Sewing Circle, whose next meeting was being held at the Ames house.

J & P Coats cotton thread was originally manufactured in Scotland, but the company began selling their merchandise in the United States around 1830, meaning that Evelina had spent most of her married life with Coats thread in her needle.  In the middle of the 20th century, the company merged with Clarks Thread to become Coats & Clarks and today, under the name of Coats PLC, is still a viable manufacturer.

Despite feeling under the weather, Evelina cleaned house this morning.  Their home being right on a busy road near the center of the village, dust and dirt from the street was apt to float into the house, or be brought in on the soles of family feet, even in the winter.  Sweeping and dusting were repeated tasks and even as Evelina wielded her broom across the floor, she probably knew she’d have to do it again before the Sewing Circle ladies gathered in her parlor.  She was determined to have the house look presentable.

After her morning of chores and an un-therapeutic bath, Evelina may have sat down to read the last bit of David Copperfield.  Given its length – and her various obligations – she had moved quickly through the book.  Like countless other Americans, she was a devoted reader of the novels of Charles Dickens, whose own personal favorite was reputed to be David Copperfield.  Ten years or so from this day, in a diary that has since been lost, Evelina confessed to shirking her housework in order to read Dicken’s “newest book” (probably Great Expectations. ) She loved his work.

February 7, 1851

images

Feb 7th Friday  Have been baking this forenoon  Heat the

brick oven twice.  Baked brown bread mince 

squash & Apple pies & cup cake & ginger snaps.

This afternoon have been cutting out stripped shirts

for sewing Circle  I partly cut them out at Mr 

Whitwells, the afternoon we met there  There are ten of them

This evening have finished the last of the 5 prs of pantiletts

for Susan & cut out two prs more  Very cold.

Baking today, lots of baking. Evelina shared a brick oven with her sister-in-law, Sarah Witherell.  It took so much concentrated fuel to keep the oven hot that they typically baked together, in weekly or bi-weekly batches, producing multiple goods to be served all week long. Yankee kitchen practice was to bake on Fridays and/or Saturdays, in preparation for the Sabbath day when no cooking was supposed to take place.  Sunday meals were taken traditionally from food that had been prepared the day before. That custom was fading by the 1850s, but the practical rationale for concentrated baking still held.

Even by this standard, though, today’s output was prodigious.    Three kinds of pie, brown bread, cake and ginger snaps suggests that more than family was going to be fed – and it was. Evelina’s turn to host the Sewing Circle was coming up, and she wanted to have plenty of goodies to offer her guests.

The afternoon sewing, too, was accomplished with the Sewing Circle in mind.  Evelina cut striped cloth to be made into shirts, something she had begun at the January meeting at the home of William and  Eliza Whitwell.  It was evening before Evelina turned to her own sewing, in this case underclothes for her daughter.

February 6, 1851

Dance

Dance

Feb 6th Thursday  This forenoon was working about house & did

a little mending  Prepared some mince pie meat for baking

Have been into school this afternoon  There were but

about 50 schollars.  Mr Jackson appears to lack energy

Miss Lothrop appeared the best of the two.

There is a ball at Lothrop Hall to night for the first

time.  Oakes Angier & Frank have gone & Helen

Sarah A & Sarah W spent the evening here.  Pleasant but cold.

Thursday night seemed to be the night for dancing in southeastern Massachusetts. The Ames sons had already attended at least two Thursday evening assemblies in Canton during January and now in February they’re attending a gathering at Lothrop Hall (the location of which is uncertain: Eastondale, perhaps?  Does any reader of this blog know?) Tonight Oakes Angier and Frank Morton went. (Where was Oliver [3]?)  Evelina’s diary is unclear on whether their cousin Helen went with them or, more likely, stayed home with her mother and aunts – the latter option being more typical for shy Helen.

Earlier in the day, Evelina was evidently still involved with looking into local schooling, getting the lay of the land, perhaps, for the incoming Orinthia Foss.  By mid-century in Easton, there were four school districts, or “ricks” as they were known, in four different geographic areas of town.  Paid for by the occasionally reluctant Easton taxpayers, the schools taught local girls and boys up to grade eight or so.  Massachusetts, and New England as a whole, led the nation in its emphasis on education and, in Evelina’s time, Massachusetts had boasted a 96% literacy rate.

Susie was the only Ames child still attending school.  Oakes Angier, Oliver (3) and Frank Morton as boys had each attended school locally before being sent away to nearby private schools such as Leicester Academy.  On this night, however, dancing, not schooling, was foremost on their minds.

February 5, 1851

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Feb 5th Wednesday  This forenoon made a head dress trimmed

with cherry colour, ribbon & flowers.  Cannot say

much for my days work.  Have been doing a little

of everything & not much of any.  Jane has done

part of the ironing  Oakes Angier has been to Canton

to mark Iron  have been reading in David Copperfield

this evening.  I have been looking over my accounts

It is very warm for the season but cloudy

A ho-hum day for Evelina, warm but gray, and she still partly sidelined by a sore foot.  Small wonder that she chose a colorful project for the morning: trimming a head-dress, more commonly referred to as a bonnet.  She used red ribbons and fabricated flowers and although she deprecated her own handiwork, the task must have been a nice change of occupation.

In the 19th century, no lady’s outfit was complete without a bonnet; it played the accessorizing role that shoes and purses play today in women’s fashion.  Given that a woman’s form was covered from neck to toe by a voluminous dress or cloak, the bonnet was an inevitable point of interest atop the whole outfit.  Not only did it stand out like the star on a Christmas tree, it also served to cover hair that was seldom washed.  It rarely kept a head warm, however – that’s what cloaks with hoods were for.

Most women had at least two bonnets, one for winter and one for summer.  Winter bonnets were made of wool, silk or even horsehair, while bonnets for warm weather were typically made of straw or “chip,”  a fine wood splint.  As the 19th century progressed, the transition from winter to summer bonnet solidified around Easter, thus introducing the notion of the Easter bonnet and competition for the prettiest headdress on that important Sunday.

In other news of the day, Oakes Angier Ames rode to Canton on shovel business to “mark Iron.”  Does this mean he looked through a supply of smelted ingots to select the best for the Ames shovels? Anyone out there care to elaborate on what Oakes Angier did?  Was the Kinsley Iron Company the forge that he visited?  Certainly probable.

February 4, 1851

Governor Oliver Ames (Feb. 4, 1831 - Oct. 22, 1895)

Governor Oliver Ames

Tues Feb 4  Had my morning work done about nine Oclock just

as A A Gilmore & wife came to pass the day.  About eleven

we called to see Simeon Randalls house.  This afternoon

called at Mr Torreys and at Mr Peckhams.  While

we were at tea Mr Torrey called to talk about letting his

house to Augustus.  Received a letter from O Foss.

Passed this evening with Sarah W in the other part

of the house finished another pair pantletts  Pleasant

Evelina’s nephew, Alson “Augustus” Gilmore, and his wife, Hannah Lincoln Gilmore, came to North Easton today to search for a house to rent.  A young couple with one child, Eddie, they were expecting a second child in July, although they may not have shared that information with their aunt.  Even if they had, she would never have spoken of it.  The increasingly prim culture of the day forbid it, but the high rate of infant mortality, too, caused many expectant parents and their relatives to downplay “the blessed event.”  Evelina carried Augustus and Hannah around to look at available properties.

Although Evelina doesn’t mention it, today is the birthday of her middle son.  Oliver Ames (3) turned 20 today.  Like his older brother, Oakes Angier, and his younger brother, Frank Morton, Oliver worked at the shovel shop, learning the business in the expectation that he would one day help run the company.  He had attended school at Leicester Academy and had hoped to go on to college, as his cousin Fred Ames was planning to do, but his father had insisted that he return home to work. Oakes Ames was no fan of formal education, having despised learning in his own youth.

The eldest son, Oakes Angier, naturally stood first in line to superintend the shovel business, but Oliver (3), would be a partner. Like his father, he was ultimately slated to travel as the company’s salesman.  Third son Frank, on the other hand, would be given an auxiliary administrative position in a related family-owned business, the Kinsley Iron Works Company in Canton.

But on this day, those occupations were in the future, as was Oliver (3)’s more memorable service as Governor of Massachusetts from 1886 to 1889. On this birthday, he was a brand-new twenty year old who worked hard all day, read alot, and enjoyed attending “sings”.

 

February 3, 1851

Toe

1851

Monday Feb 3 have not been about house much on

account of my foot.  It pains me a great deal & has

turned black under the nail.  Could not sleep last night.

Have been most of the day mending Oakes A shop coat.

work awhile mending Mr Ames shop coat

Susan has a bad cold & cough so that she did not

go to school.  This afternoon wrote a letter for Jane

to her nephew.  This is a remarkably pleasant day.

Evelina had to sit down today on account of having dropped a flatiron on her foot and injured her toe.  She wasn’t idle, however.  It was Monday, after all, and no one was ever idle on a Monday. She took up her mending, working on the shop coats of her husband, Oakes, and her eldest son, Oakes Angier.  The shop coats were used by the men for work, and only work, and had to be plenty sturdy enough to do physical labor in.

Little Susan (known as Susie  by her brothers) stayed home from school today and rested. At age eight, Susan was beginning to learn how to sew, but her skills at this stage were too elementary to help her mother with the mending.  Instead, she may have sat with her mother and read aloud, as sometimes happened, or perhaps her cough kept her in bed.

Jane McHanna, the servant who was busy today washing clothes, wanted to write a letter to a nephew.  Like many of the other Irish immigrants, Jane was probably illiterate and so asked Evelina to write the letter for her.  Evelina obliged.  But would the nephew have been able to read the letter once he got it?  And where was he?  Back in Ireland or had he, too, made his way to America?

February 2, 1851

Flatiron

Sunday Feb 2d  It snowed very hard this morning but we

all went to meeting to hear Mr Brigham of Taunton

He gave us two very good sermons  he is very quick in his motions

& very independent in his manner  Mother went to meeting & home.

Since meeting have been reading in David Copperfield

Sarah A & Helen came in and stoped an hour or two.

This evening have hurt my foot quite badly by letting a

flatiron fall on it  It has cleared of[f] quite pleasant.

Snowy weather didn’t prevent attendance at meeting, and the Ames family stayed for both morning and afternoon service.  A visiting minister, Reverend C. H. Brigham, replaced Reverend Whitwell in the pulpit.  Mr. Whitwell, meanwhile, presumably officiated in Taunton.  This kind of swap was accomplished every month or so when ministers in the area switched places.  A Congregational practice that had been in place for years, the swap gave ministers the test of different congregations while, with fresh voice, it reiterated church dogma among a broad population.  Both congregations and ministers benefited however “quick in his motions” a visiting parson might be.

After church, Evelina’s brother Alson Gilmore carried their mother, Hannah, back to the farm in southeastern Easton.  Evelina had a little more time to herself, which she spent with Charles Dickens, at least until her sister-in-law Sarah Ames and daughter Helen stopped by.  Evelina has been reading David Copperfield – an 800 page book – for a week now.  But somehow in the course of the afternoon or evening – perhaps getting prepared for laundry day tomorrow? – Evelina dropped a flatiron on her foot.  Ow.  That took her out of commission for the rest of the day, perhaps allowing even more reading.

February 1, 1851

Ames Home and Office, North Easton, Massachusetts ca. 1852 - 1862

Ames Home and Office, North Easton, Massachusetts
ca. 1852 – 1862

Feb 1st  Saturday  Sit down to mending again this morning

Mended a pr of kid gloves and a number of other things

Went into the other part of the house with mother

to tea  worked on panteletts finished two prs.  Mrs Packard

and Mrs Rhoda Fuller called there  Mr Ames has been 

to Boston & brought home Ladys Books Grahams & Harpers

& International Magazines & 1/4 lb Angola yarn.  Have been

reading in the magazines this evening.  Cloudy & warmer

Evelina often mentions going into “the other part of the house,” which was a section of the house on the southern side in which Old Oliver, a widower, lived with his widowed daughter Sarah Witherell and her children.  This section was created when Old Oliver turned the original (ca. 1812) dwelling into a duplex in 1827 on the occasion of the marriage of Oakes and Evelina.

In 18th century New England, family custom often dictated that the eldest son inherit the family homestead and, in order to effect that, houses were sometimes renovated to allow two families to live side by side until the transfer of property came to pass.  That this practice was becoming less prevalent in the 19th century meant nothing to Old Oliver who, independent and conservative, still had his feet in the 18th century in certain ways.  His home would go to his eldest son, and he would eventually provide homes for his other children as well.

In the above photograph of the Ames House on Main Street, we can see the original home in the center, a building that is divided in two on the inside, with Old Oliver’s doorway facing toward the camera (behind the middle tree).  The entryway for Oakes and Evelina faces the street.  To the left of the house is the attached office, where Oakes and Oliver Jr and others kept track of business matters.  It was known as the Counting House.

In the background to the right is the house Old Oliver built for Oliver Jr and wife Sarah Lothrop Ames on the occasion of their marriage in 1833.  In 1863, they would tear this down and rebuild a more modern and formal abode, one that still stands today. The old homestead, which housed generations of Ameses in its time, was torn down in 1951, approximately 100 years after this photograph was taken.