Month: June 2015

June 30, 1852

Stage

Wednesday June 30th  Mr Ames left home this morning

for New York and Conn  Mrs James Mitchell

her mother & Grace came to father Ames & I

called into see them  Mrs Mitchell made 

quite a long call in here and at Olivers

Mrs Almira Ames came by the stage

to night from Conn she left New York

about four weeks since

Oakes Ames went to New York and Connecticut today on shovel business, as his father and wife each noted in their diaries. He wasn’t the only Ames on the road, either. Almira Ames, widow of cousin George Ames, arrived in North Easton from Connecticut and New York. Oakes probably went by “the cars,” as they called the railroad, while she definitely traveled in a stagecoach. Their separate modes of travel demonstrate the transformation that was taking place in transportation.

The railroad was moving in and would shortly become the dominant mode for long-distance transportation for the rest of the century and beyond. As Mrs. Penlimmon, a character developed by popular author Fanny Fern, opined only two years later:

‘The days of stage coaches have gone by.  Nothing passes for muster now but comets, locomotives and telegraph wires. Our forefathers and foremothers would have to hold the hair on their heads if they should wake up in 1854. They’d be as crazy as a cat in a shower-bath, at all our whizzing and rushing. Nice old snails!”*

How life was changing.

In more local traffic, Harriet Lavinia Angier Mitchell came to call with her mother and daughter on Old Oliver and Sarah Witherell in the other part of the house, on Evelina, and on Sarah Lothrop Ames next door. Mrs. Mitchell was a cousin of Old Oliver’s late wife, Susannah Angier Ames.

* Fanny Fern, Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Port-Folio, ca. 1854, p. 50

June 29, 1852

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Henry Clay

(1777 – 1852)

1852

Tuesday June 29th  Have had a quiet […] sick day  have

a bad cold & cough and sick head ache

A gentleman here from Pennsylvania

to dine but I did not go to the table

Mr Bartlett here to tea from Maine

Augusta came in and cut her out a

visite & I have written to Melinda to

get some trimming for it  Ottomans came

from Boston

Evelina was sick and probably spent most of the day in bed. She didn’t eat much, missing midday dinner – with company – and possibly skipping tea, too. Perhaps she took a tray of food in her room. She must have begun to feel a bit better, however, as she eventually roused herself to cut out a “visite” for Augusta Gilmore, who came over at the end of the day.  She even wrote to her friend Melinda Orr, in Boston, to find some trim. She could get animated about a sewing project, though not much else appealed to her today.

It was “a fair warm day + verry dry,”* and probably “verry” good for the haying that was underway. Old Oliver and a team of hands would have been outdoors from sunup to sundown.

In the world beyond North Easton, a consummate, outspoken and controversial politician passed away today: Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, aged 75, died in Washington D. C., of consumption. The Ameses wouldn’t have known this, however, until they read the next day’s newspapers. But most likely they admired Clay, the “Star of the West,” and the founder of the Whig Party. Clay’s biggest opponent back in the day had been Andrew Jackson, who called Clay “the Judas of the West.”  One imagines that Oakes Ames had probably been on the side of Clay’s admirers.

*Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection

June 28, 1852

Haymaking

1852

Monday June 28th  Have been about the house at

work most of the day  Swept most of the 

house except the parlour.  washed the

front stairs and have the house in pretty

good order  Mrs S Ames came in with her 

work and stoped an hour or two something

unusual for her  Hannah came to spend 

the evening but I had gone into Edwins and

she went in to see Mrs Witherell

 

Either Evelina felt better this morning, or her habit of working simply wouldn’t let her be idle. In the course of the morning, she swept most of the rooms and washed the stairs while her servant – Hannah Murphy, most likely- did the laundry and prepared the midday dinner. In the afternoon, Evelina at last sat down. Sarah Lothrop Ames came over – “something unusual for her” – and they visited and sewed together. Evelina was usually the one who went next door, not the other way around. In the evening, Evelina even felt well enough to go across the street to see Edwin and Augusta Gilmore.

The highlight of the day, however, had to be the commencement of haying. Old Oliver reported that “this was a fair warm day wind south west + verry dry We begun haying to day.”*  The calendar may have indicated that summer had barely begun, but everyone knew that fall and winter lay ahead. That hay would be essential. And now that haymaking had begun, perhaps Old Oliver would be less irritable with his family members.

 

* Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection

June 27, 1852

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Carl Christian Anton Christensen, “Interior of the Carthage Jail”*

1852

Sunday June 27  Have not been to meeting at all

to day on account of having a bad cough

Alson came here at noon with Mr

Ames  Have been reading most all

day  Augusta made a call this morning

to say she should not got to meeting

Made ice cream this afternoon

 

Evelina felt ill today and missed church. Other Ames family members, however, attended the Unitarian meeting. Mr. Whitwell probably led the service in the typically thoughtful but unadorned style of this Protestant sect. Other services around town, such as the Catholic mass at the chapel on Pond Street, would have been more elaborate, with communion being taken, for instance, the service in Latin, and a great focus on Christ, the Virgin Mary, and various ancient saints.

In Salt Lake City, many miles to the west, a different service altogether would have been held at the Church of the Latter Day Saints, known to most of us as the Mormon Church. Believers in Jesus Christ, the Mormons were, and are, a truly modern religious group, having only developed in upstate New York during the 1820s from the sayings and visions of their leader, Joseph Smith. Smith and others tried to lead his followers West to settle with more freedom than they had in the East, but ran into many problems and pockets of persecution along the way.

In fact, on this exact date eight years earlier (June 27, 1844), Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob while in jail in Carthage, Illinois. The illustration above is a folk painting of that murder by a 19th century artist. Smith’s followers recovered from this tragedy and found a new leader in Brigham Young (and others, known as apostles), who led them to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where they founded Salt Lake City in 1847.  By 1852, the year that Evelina is recording in her diary, the Mormons were well established there.  In August, 1852, in fact, the elders of the church would approve the practice of polygamy, a choice that would bring them certain notoriety.** They were, and are, a sect unto themselves.

In years to come, Oliver Ames Jr. and Oakes Ames would have extensive dealings with Brigham Young over railroad matters.

* Image courtesy of the Brigham Young University Museum of Art

** In 1890, the LDS would renounce the practice of polygamy.

June 26, 1852


  • hentzcl

Caroline Lee Hentz

(1800 – 1856)

1852

June 26th Saturday  Was assisting Hannah about house

most of the forenoon  Made pies & cake baked

in the small new tins  Have been mending

this afternoon and finished Marcus Warland

by Mrs Caroline Lee Hentz

Mr Ames brought home 1/4 lb black sewing

silk from Boston  I have a bad cough

Although her “bad cough” presaged an oncoming cold, Evelina managed to accomplish many domestic tasks today. Perhaps the best part of the day, however, came after the choring, baking and mending. She finished reading Marcus Warland; or, The Long Moss Spring. Tale of the South. by Caroline Lee Hentz.

Caroline Lee Hentz was an immensely popular novelist, “well known and much esteemed.”* In the 1850s, the Boston Library listed her as one of the three top writers of the day. A major literary figure, now largely forgotten, Mrs. Hentz described herself as a “Northerner who traveled and worked throughout the South for nearly thirty years.”** Though born and raised in Lancaster, Massachusetts, only fifty-odd miles from North Easton, Caroline and her teacher husband spent married life in various Southern states, opening and closing schools as they went along. They lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Covington, Kentucky (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, where they met Harriet Beecher Stowe); Alabama; Georgia; and Florida.

Unlike Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Hentz was an apologist for slavery. In the Introduction to Marcus Warland, she wrote:

“We believe, if the domestic manners of the South were more generally and thoroughly known at the North, the prejudices that have been gradually building up a wall of separation between these two divisions of our land would yield to the irresistible force of conviction.”*** She believed not only that the institution of slavery was essential to the South’s livelihood, but that blacks were a lesser race who needed to be looked after. She was hardly alone in the latter belief.

After Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published to both huge acclaim and vehement dissent, Mrs. Hentz penned a rebuttal novel entitled The Planter’s Northern Bride.  It came out in 1854 and found a wide audience. We can imagine that Evelina might have read it out of curiosity.

But today, while Evelina reclined with Marcus Warland, her old father-in-law was dependably keeping his eye on the sky and his finger to the wind.  The weather entry for today read “the 24 – 25 + 26 were fair cool days for the season + windy drying days wind north west + west most of the time.”**** This bode well for haying.

* Anonymous, Southern Quarterly Review, circa 1851, quoted by Karen Tracey, Plots and Propsals, University of Illinois, 2000.

** “Caroline Lee Hentz,” Wikipedia, accessed June 24, 2015

*** Caroline Lee Hentz, Marcus Warland, 1852, p, 2

****Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection

 

June 25, 1852

hand-sewing-color-grown-cotton-pajama-pants-for-a-toddler

1852

June 25 Friday  Worked about house all the forenoon 

but can scarcely tell what I was doing but

know I wasnt idle. This afternoon have

been mending different articles Hannah

mended the stockings.  I hope she is going 

to be a pretty good girl.  Mr Whitwell called

Called at Edwins this evening  Augustus & wife

Edwin & Elisha Andrews gone to Alsons

 

New servant Hannah Murphy was “pretty good” today helping Evelina mend the family stockings. Mending was never Evelina’s favorite duty.  She often put it off, preferring instead to head for the garden or slip next door to chat with one of her sisters-in-law. But what she seemed to prefer most of all was to sew. Cutting cloth for a new dress, or refashioning a waist in an old one, finding just the right trim for her sleeves, or making multiple buttonholes, such was her passion. Evelina loved to sew.

If Evelina had lived today rather than in the 19th century, would sewing still have been her favorite occupation? Freed from her domestic obligations as a 19th century housewife, and no longer in the thrall of the patriarchal laws and mores of the day, what could she have accomplished?  She was so tactile that it’s hard to imagine her abandoning her needle, or not using her hands. Might she have become a textile artist? A craftsperson? Or had a career in fashion?

We know that Evelina was hardworking; as she herself points out, “I wasnt idle.” Whatever career we might imagine for her to excel in, she would have committed to it as surely as she did to her domestic agenda in the 1850s. Yet the fantasy of transporting Evelina to the 21st century ultimately falls flat.  She was too much a creature of her own time and place, as we all tend to be, and not unhappy with her lot in life – even while mending.

 

June 24, 1852

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Modern image of Mount Hope Cemetery, Boston

 

1852 Thursday

June 24th  Carried Mrs Patterson to Bridgewater.

Helen & Susan went with me. Dined at Mr

Burrells, Orinthias boarding place  got there about

twelve left there about two & went to Dr Washburns

He filed my eyetooth to make it even with the 

others  Went into the cemetery and in Orinthias school

a short time & home by Alsons stoped with Lavinia a 

few moments.  Alsons wife had gone to Boston

 

With her niece, Helen, and daughter, Susie, Evelina drove Mrs. Patterson to her home in Bridgewater. This was the last appearance of Mrs. Patterson in the diary, so we may assume that she didn’t work at the Ames residence any more this year. Most likely, she had been hired for spring-cleaning only, yet her brief tenure with the Ameses had a lasting impact. She was efficient enough to make Evelina dissatisfied or otherwise unhappy with the work of her regular servant, Jane McHanna, the result of which was the latter’s dismissal.

While in Bridgewater, Evelina accomplished various errands, the most pleasant of which was probably dinner at Orinthia’s “boarding place.”  The least pleasant had to be the appointment with Dr. Washburn, where the dentist filed down one of her canine teeth “to make it even with the others.”

Evelina went into the local cemetery, too, perhaps to visit a specific grave. Interesting to note that on this exact same day in the Boston area, another cemetery was receiving attention. In Roslindale, Mount Hope Cemetery – a new, rural-type graveyard in the mold of Mount Auburn – was dedicated.

On the way home, Evelina stopped at the family farm and had a quick chat with her niece Lavinia.

 

June 23, 1852

1852 Stove Ad 002

Advertisement for cook stove, June 1852*

 

Wednesday June 23d  Work again weeding the garden

untill nine or ten and then about house

attending to the new stove that was put up

last night  Passed the afternoon at Mr

Howard Lothrops with Mrs Witherell, S Ames

& Helen.  Got 4lbs of butter of Mrs Harvey &

Eggs of Mrs Howard & Pratt

 

Evelina had a new, cast-iron stove, a high-tech appliance in the new, industrial age. Cast iron was “the wonder material of the 19th century and led to a prolific industry in making stoves for cooking as well as heating. Cast iron could take the repeated temperature swings of hot and cold, and it was an ideal medium for casting into complex, prefabricated parts, as well as for decorative surface ornament.”** Coal and iron mines were kept busy providing the raw material as middle-class households bought cook stoves for their transformed kitchens.

The new stoves had various brand names, naturally; one model was even named for everyone’s favorite opera star: the Jenny Lind Double Oven Stove. The dominant design for cookstoves was called “step-top,” which allowed two separate levels for cooking on. The choice of cooking surface facilitated the preparation of several dishes. Evelina could be confident that her kitchen was state-of-the-art, whatever her father-in-law had to say about it.

Evelina may even have talked about her new stove as she was out and about this afternoon, picking up butter and eggs, and visiting with her two sisters-in-law at the elder Lothrops’ home.

 

*Advertisement from Charleston, Illinois newspaper, 

** http://www.oldhouseonline.com/history-of-the-kitchen-stove

June 22, 1852

Lightning

1852

Tuesday June 22d  Worked in the garden again this

morning untill about ten.  My garden

takes up quite too much of my time.  This afternoon

carried my work into Olivers.  Sewed the skirt

on to my brown muslin and worked some on the waist

of my purple cambric dress  Catharine here again

to day but it is of no use for me to have her.  Have had

a very heavy shower with thunder & lightning

 

Evelina complained that gardening “takes up quite too much” of her time, but she did seem to love it. It and sewing were her especial interests. From the two occupations, we can derive the fact that she loved many colors. She didn’t just choose one or two colors, she chose all of them. In her garden we see blossoms of pink, purple, red and yellow in many shades and sizes. In her wardrobe, too, the spectrum is broad. On this day she worked on both a brown muslin and a purple cambric dress.  Just recently, she had finished a green gingham dress, and before that there was a black silk. She had sewn pink aprons, blue silks and plaid skirts, and many of her outfits had bonnets or ribbons to match. Her taste was all-encompassing, it would seem. Did her color selection reflect the styles of the day, or her personal preferences, or both?

While the colorful garden was apparently thriving under Evelina’s careful attention, her sewing projects were not. The new servant, Catharine Middleton, who had been hired primarily to assist with sewing, was not working out. She was “of no use.”

Old Oliver, the family weatherman, was unusually chatty about today’s weather.  He was excited about the rain, but feared it had come too late for certain patches of hay. He wrote: “it was fair this forenoon + cloudy in the afternoon the wind was very high all day from the South west + towards night + in the evening there was a shower of nearly half an inch, but the grass on gravely land is to far gone to be helpt.”

 

June 21, 1852

images-1

1852 Monday  June 21st  Mrs Patterson & Hannah washed and 

I worked in the garden untill about ten

and was about house until two or three

Oclock  Catharine Middleton here sewing

Father has given me another jawing about

my leaving some old coats on the grass

 

Here in the early 21st century, a dictionary of slang defines “jawing” as being saucy or speaking disrespectfully. Not so in the 1850s, when “jawing” was slang for moralizing, or giving a lecture.  “Father Ames,” as he was known to the Ames wives, gave Evelina “another jawing” today, this time about her “leaving some old coats” outside on the lawn.  She or Mrs. Patterson or Hannah Murphy must have washed the items and left them out to dry in the sunshine without hanging them on a line.  Perhaps the women had run out of clothespins. But Old Oliver would have been concerned about possible damage to the grass, which was already vulnerable due to drought. Or perhaps he was just cross.

Old Oliver described this Monday as “a fair warm day wind south west.”  What he didn’t mention was that it was summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The earth in its orbit tilted its northern hemisphere closest to the sun at around 7:30 in the morning.  If Oliver knew it, he didn’t care, or just didn’t record it. He was watching the ground and planning to cut the hay.