Cambridgeport, ca. 1854*
Thursday Oct 14th Mrs Mower left for Maine this
morning or rather she is to stop over night in
Cambridgeport and home tomorrow Mrs Witherell &
Mrs S Ames came in for an hour or two this afternoon
I feel that I have not seen Mrs Mower as much
as I wish I have given her my winter bonnet
3 dollars in Cash and other things & paid her
passage from Boston
Louisa Mower, an old friend of Evelina, left for home. Evelina bought Louisa the ticket from Boston to Maine, gave Louisa some cash and her own old bonnet. Evelina was often generous to friends and family this way – to the females, at any rate. She looked after the women she cared about and in her entry today, she sounds a bit sad to see this particular friend depart.
“[T]his was a cloudy cool day wind north east and some misty just at night”* wrote Old Oliver in his journal; he doesn’t suggest it, but the sky and wind portended a winter storm, the first of the season. Louisa’s travel to Maine would be delayed on account of it.
Cambridgeport, where Louisa was staying while waiting, is a neighborhood within the city of Cambridge that today borders the Charles River east from Massachusetts Avenue to Central Square. In the 19th century, it was part wetlands, part residential, and part transportation hub. It was the site of the relatively new Grand Junction Railroad and Depot Company, which connected trains heading west and north – a line that’s still active in our 21st century. A few years later, Cambridgeport was also the location of the F. A. Kennedy Steam Bakery, where Fig Newtons and Lorna Doones were born.
*Image courtesy of http://www.mit.edu
**Oliver Ames, Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection
evelinaames 