March 15, 1851

Rein

1851

March 15th Saturday  This morning Orinthia & myself gave the sitting

room &c a thourough cleaning & afterwards sat down to 

sewing.  Mended a number of articles  Orinthia put some

new sleeves into an old shirt of Franks that were small

This afternoon Orinthia Susan & I went down to Mothers with Charley,

called at Mr Guilds & Howards to see about her school and at Major Sebas & Mrs R

Howards.  Mr Ames brought from Boston Velvet chalk.  Pleasant

Charley was a horse, one of several that the Ames family owned.  Today Charley was put to work pulling Evelina, her daughter Susan and the new teacher, Orinthia Foss, in a carriage along the rough road from North Easton to the Gilmore farm near the Raynham town line. This, after Evelina’s mentioning only the day before the “bad traveling” on the local roads. They must have had a bumpy ride.  The weather was nice, though, so on they went.

Coming back from the Gilmore farm, they made several calls, the first two at Mr. Guild’s and at Elijah and Nancy Howard’s on school matters.  Evelina continued to act with or for Orinthia Foss “about her school.”  The ladies were on a roll with their visiting and stopped in at Seba and Eleuthera Howard’s farm.  Their last stop was a visit to Mrs. Roland Howard, a widow who was also a member of the Sewing Circle.

Evelina, Orinthia and Susan weren’t the only travelers out this day.  Oakes Ames made his usual Saturday trip into Boston on shovel business and brought back some “Velvet chalk” for dressmaking.

March 14, 1851

Hose

March 14 Friday  Quite early this morning sat down to 

mending the stockings.  Jane had mended them for two

or three weeks & they were very much out of order.  At

ten Oclock comenced working on the new pattern shirt

& finished it before eight the bosom was ready to put in.

made the button holes & helped Orinthia finish a

a coarse shirt of Oakes Angier.  Very pleasant

but bad traveling

Jane McHanna, the Irish servant who did the laundry and cooking for Evelina and Oakes Ames, was not much of a seamstress.  She had recently been assigned the task of mending everyone’s stockings, or hose as they were also known, but evidently, Jane’s mending did not pass muster. Evelina had to see to the work herself.  This explains why we’ve never heard of Jane sewing any of the shirts that Evelina had been working on for weeks.

Orinthia Foss was around to rely on, however.  When not teaching her little classroom, she seemed to help Evelina in various ways, sewing and choring.  Evelina must have been grateful not just for the assistance, but also for the company of another adult female in a home usually filled with the sounds and sights of four grown men and one little schoolgirl.

“Bad traveling” meant that the roads were in transition from winter to spring.  Roads weren’t paved, of course, so by this time of the year they were rutted, rough and still patchy with snow or wet with puddles. Sleighs no longer worked, so wagons, carriages and carts had to bump and rock along the byways.  Hard to say who had tougher going, the animals pulling or the passengers riding.

March 13, 1851

mens_fashion_1856

1851  March 13  Thursday  This forenoon worked on an old pair of 

pants for Oliver  They needed a great deal of 

repairing and I worked on them untill two Oclock

This afternoon & evening spent at Alsons with Oliver 

& wife, Wm Reed & wife, Mrs Whitwell, A[u]gustus & J. Pool

& wife passed a very pleasant afternoon.  I knit on

Susans Angola yarn stocking.  It has stormed

quite hard all the afternoon, got there about five Oclock

Did the Ames men dress like the gentlemen in this 1850’s illustration?  Oakes Ames, as we know from stories his appalled friends told, did not dress so well. But his sons might have aspired to be fashionable. Certainly Oliver (3), whose old pants Evelina mended today, might have wished for such an outfit, one that befitted a man with his eye on college.

It’s doubtful that the pants Evelina sewed today came out looking like those in the fashion plate.  As accomplished a seamstress as she was, the men’s pants she was most familiar with were working pants, the ones her sons wore to the shovel shop everyday. It took her several hours to repair this pair. Then, not willing to let her hands be idle, she carried a knitting project to her brother Alson’s, perhaps traveling there with her brother-in-law, Oliver Jr. and his wife Sarah Lothrop Ames. The Gilmores were having a little gathering.

Alson and Henrietta Gilmore seemed to be socializing a great deal this month.  Last week they held a dance that the Ames sons attended, this week they had friends in for tea, and sometime before that they had sent their nineteen-year-old daughter, Lavinia, into town to stay with the Ames family for a week. What was going on? Did this increased social activity stem from cabin fever or was it mere coincidence? Were the Gilmores working to find a husband for Lavinia?

The Angola yarn that Evelina knitted into a stocking for little Susie is something of a mystery ingredient. Does any reader know about this yarn?

March 12, 1851

Abbott H. Thayer, Angel, 1887, oil Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of John Gellatly

*

March 12th  Wednesday.  This morning commenced the new pattern shirt

but got but very little time to work on it.  Miss Eaton

died about eight Oclock  Mrs Witherell & Mrs S Ames laid

her out & this evening I went with Mrs Witherell to 

help her put on the robe which she made this afternoon

Mrs S Ames & myself went to the sewing circle at

Daniel Reeds  There were about twenty of us.

worked on striped shirts.  Very pleasant

A[u]gustus here to dine

This must have been an emotional day for Evelina.  Miss Eaton, a neighbor, died after a lingering illness. Sarah Ames and Sarah Witherell prepared Miss Eaton’s body, and Evelina helped put a shroud, or robe, on the corpse.  For months now, the three sisters-in-law and others had been looking after Miss Eaton. Everyone had anticipated her demise, but still, it must have been hard when she finally passed away.

After the Ames women had prepared Miss Eaton’s corpse for burial, two of them, Sarah Ames and Evelina, rode out to a meeting of the Sewing Circle.  This was the first meeting since Evelina’s own ill-attended meeting back in February.  The gathering was held at the home of Daniel and Mary Reed and about twenty women attended.  If Evelina felt awkward, she didn’t say so in her diary.  Perhaps there were women there she had been hurt by, perhaps not. Perhaps people apologized for not having shown up at Evelina’s, perhaps not. Whatever exchanges or pleasantries took place as the ladies worked on striped shirts, the mood of the afternoon must have been tinged with the sorrow of the morning and the loss of Miss Eaton. Death in the neighborhood put things in perspective.

* Abbot H. Thayer, Angel, 1887, oil, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Gift of John Gellatly

March 11, 1851

photo*

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March 11  Tuesday.  Orinthia & myself each finished a coarse shirt

this morning before school  I then went to mending

shirts and worked on them all the forenoon & untill

about two Oclock & went to cutting out shirts.  Cut three

coarse ones for Oakes Angier & one fine one from the pattern

I had of Sister Sally.  Cut out some stories for my scrap

book.  This evening commenced the sleeves of a shirt.

Augustus dined at Mr Peckhams  Pleasant but windy

The ladies continued sewing on shirts.  Evelina sewed for so long that her eyes must have hurt by the end of the day, yet she was still working with her needle when the lamps were lit. She mended many shirts, finished sewing one and cut out four more. Orinthia Foss, the young schoolteacher who was boarding with the Ameses, helped her.

Of the four shirt patterns Evelina cut, one was a new design from “Sister Sally,” most likely the wife of Horatio Ames. Horatio was the second son of Old Oliver and brother to Oakes, Oliver Jr., William, and Sarah Witherell. The black sheep of the family, he lived in Connecticut where, like his brother William, he ran an ironworks operation.  He and his wife Sally had begun their married life in North Easton; his father had built them a home there and their first child, another girl named Susan, was born only a few months after Oakes Angier.  As the two earliest grandchildren of Old Oliver and Susanna, the two cousins had certainly played together.

Evelina did take one break from sewing.  She cut out some items for her scrapbook, which up to now had been filled mostly with “receipts” or recipes.  That, or Evelina was creating two scrapbooks, one for keepsakes and favorite readings, the other filled with recipes for the kitchen.

*Illustration “Ladies Sewing Birds,” advertising broadside of C. E. Stearns, Middletown, Connecticut, 1851. Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford

March 10, 1851

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March 10  Monday  This is town meeting day.  Mr Ames & O Angier went

They spent the whole day there but accomplished very little

Mr Pratt & Brown chosen School committee O Angier was

nominated for one & lacked by one vote of being chosen

They brought home the school report of the last year

which is not very favourable for the schools in town generaly

Miss Foss & Clarks school are spoken very well of.

It commenced snowing about ten Oclock & is quite stormy this evening

Town Meeting was – still is – a great New England tradition. In the 19th century (and well into the 20th) the meetings were often scheduled in March, making them an annual marker of winter’s impending departure.

People turned out for town meeting.  Rather, men turned out for town meeting.  Women, who before 1780 in Massachusetts had enjoyed suffrage, no longer could vote.  National suffrage for women, a cause that would create deep divisions among the Ames women of a later day, would not be achieved until 1920.

Oakes Ames and his eldest son, Oakes Angier Ames, attended meeting and stayed all day. Oakes Angier evidently ran for school board but just missed being elected. He was showing a taste for politics, something that his father felt as well. His mother, perhaps influenced by her son’s loss, harrumphed that “very little” was accomplished at this year’s meeting, although she seemed pleased that their boarder, Orinthia Foss, was mentioned as being a good teacher.

Today’s town meeting was moderated by one of Easton’s greybeards, Capt. Tisdale Harlow. A resident of the Poquanticut section of town, Harlow was a former selectman, town treasurer, school board member, veteran of the War of 1812, and captain of the Easton Light Infantry in 1833-34. He had crossed swords with the Ames family in the 1830’s in a town row about the introduction of Unitarianism into the Congregational church. Harlow and many others were against it; Old Oliver, his sons and others were for it.  The sectarian controversy wore on for about eight years and ultimately led to a permanent split in the congregation. Historian William Chaffin suggested that “[i]ts unhappy effects were felt for many years.”  Were there remnants of hard feelings on display at today’s town meeting?

March 9, 1851

Down_in_the_Cave_Church_Pews_Company_Town_Exhibition_Coal_Mine_Beckly_WV_8576_(7536218802)_(2)

/51

March 9  Sunday  Have attended meeting all day.  Mr

Whitwell gave us two excellent sermons particularly the

afternoon  William is here & went to meeting.  came

Friday morning  I spent the intermition with Mrs Elijah

Howard at the meeting house very pleasantly indeed.

After meeting looked over some of the old Saturday

Couriers  Edwin made a call is about sick with a cold

It is quite pleasant, but snow on the ground & bad

traveling

Evelina and Oakes saw Oakes’s younger brother William at church, probably for the first time since William had returned to town. The relationship between the two brothers was not cordial, but the families sat together in the same pew (or set of pews, given the size of the extended family) and could hardly have avoided one another.

As usual, Evelina enjoyed listening to Mr. Whitwell’s sermons.  She enjoyed the “intermition” between the morning and afternoon service at the church, too.  She spent it sitting with Nancy Howard, mother of Ellen Howard on whom Evelina had called earlier in the week.  The formality of the times shows in Evelina’s referring to Nancy not by her first, or Christian, name, but by her husband’s name. Even in her own journal, writing of friends, Evelina maintained the nomenclature of “Mr.” and “Mrs.”  Formality of address was second nature to her, as it was to most well-bred people of the day.  Even husbands and wives typically referred to one another as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” when speaking in the third person.

Oakes Ames must not have gone into Boston the day before or, if he did, he failed to return with the latest magazines.  For her reading that night, Evelina opted to look over old issues of  The Saturday Courier .  Where was this paper published?  Not in Easton, not in Boston.  Bridgewater? Canton? Stoughton? Taunton? Does any reader know about this newspaper?

It also may be that Oakes was away from Easton this week.  He often traveled to other nearby states for the shovel company, taking orders and collecting accounts, a task that his middle son, Oliver (3), would eventually take on.

*Photo from Down in the Caves Church Pew Company.

March 8, 1851

Grace Aguilar (1816 - 1847)

Grace Aguilar
(1816 – 1847)

/51

March 8th Sat.  This has been a very stormy day,  Windy & snowy.

Orinthia did not keep school and we have had

a nice quiet time.  I have finished putting the 

bosom & wristbands into Franks shirt and worked

some on a coarse shirt.  Orinthia finished a 

coarse shirt that she has been making & commenced 

another for one of the boys.  I have finished reading

Womans Friendship & like it pretty well.

Woman’s Friendship was a domestic novel by English author Grace Aguilar.  In her short life,  Aguilar wrote not only novels, but also poetry, histories, and  religious treatises that explored her Jewish heritage.  Among the latter, she translated “The Spirit of Judaism” from the French, and wrote her own extensive exploration of the scriptures, “The Jewish Faith: Its Spiritual Consolation, Moral Guidance and Immortal Hope.”  She was prolific and extremely bright.

Her domestic novels – the kind of writing that Old Oliver called “love trash” – were her most successful publications. Such novels were a literary genre, not unlike today’s “chick lit,” that was written for, and often by, women.  The novels usually had storylines that featured the travails of young heroines.  Woman’s Friendship, published posthumously, was the tale of one such young woman who suffers many misfortunes and reversals but manages to save her family after her father’s early death and her brother’s losing fight with consumption, all the while retaining the lifelong friendship of a countess. Putting the improbabilities of its plot aside, Evelina liked it. As she sewed today with Orinthia Foss, Evelina may even have had the story from the book in her head.  She certainly liked the book well enough to eventually commence another novel by Miss Aguilar.

It was Saturday, the day that Oakes Ames usually went into Boston.  Did he go today, or did the weather make traveling too difficult?   Were they all getting tired of winter?

March 7, 1851

photo

1851

March 7th  Have been giving my rooms a thorough sweeping

& dusting which took me all the forenoon

This afternoon worked on an old shirt of Franks

Am putting new wristbands & bosom into it.

This evening Oliver, Frank & Orinthia have gone to

Alsons to a party.  Orinthia would not go to the dancing

school last night on account of something Frank said & had to be urged

to go to Alsons to night  Augustus not here   Pleasant

Some entertainment today for the young people: a party at Alson and Henrietta Gilmore’s house out in the country.  What was the occasion?  Was it a casual get-together, a spur-of-the-moment gathering, perhaps extending from the assembly of the night before?  Had Lavinia Gilmore or her brother Francis asked for the party, or had it been planned by their parents?  Were they hoping to promote their daughter’s eligibility for marriage?  Was there method to the gathering, or was it just for fun?

Orinthia Foss, the young schoolteacher boarding with the Ameses, was included in the festivities, although she apparently went with some reluctance.  It seems that Frank Morton Ames had teased her in some fashion, hurting her feelings or insulting her the day before. Frank could be a handful, according to William Chaffin, who wrote that Frank “needed more discipline than Oakes [Angier] or Oliver [3].”   Frank was a seventeen year old youth, after all, with more energy than wisdom, probably competing with his older brothers for respect and attention, and letting his mouth do his thinking.

Another younger sibling came to North Easton today.  William Leonard Ames, fourth son of Old Oliver, “came this morning from New Jersey,” according to Old Oliver’s daily record.  In New Jersey, William Leonard ran an ironworks operation, a related family business that had recently failed. According to extensive research by industrial scholar Greg Galer, William Leonard and his eldest brother, Oakes Ames, were at odds over the handling of the demise of the business.  Oakes had “engineered the bankruptcies of these operations for his financial gain,”* while William had barely managed to walk away.  As a result, the two brothers were not on good terms.  Evelina doesn’t mention William’s arrival.  She sticks to her sewing, new wristbands for Frank.

* Greg Galer, Forging Ahead, p. 6.

March 6, 1851

Thread

March 6th  Thursday.  This morning Orinthia cleaned the sitting room

and I sat down to work quite Early on Mr Ames shirt

and finished it about ten Oclock  I then went to

mending some old shirts & colars &c  Sarah Witherell

brought me the fourth bosom that she has stiched for

me.  Jane went to Mrs Willis to get her dress  Miss Foss

and myself called to see Mr Guild about the school & on

Ellen Howard  A[u]gustus here to dine  Morning pleasant  storm at night

More men’s shirts.  If we’re getting tired of reading about them, imagine how tired Evelina must have been sewing them – and she had many more to go. She evidently had a method to her sewing, in that she worked on the same kind of clothing in succession until she had finished.  She didn’t make just one shirt for her boys or husband, she made several in a row.  She didn’t just make one apron for her daughter, she made three or four in a row.  Perhaps the cutting of the fabric and the arrangement of the pattern components were made easier when addressed as multiples.  The economy of cloth-cutting trumped the tedium of repetition.

Leaving the shirt bosoms and collars behind, Evelina went out with Orinthia Foss in the afternoon.  They paid a call on a Mr. Guild on a school-related matter, showing that Evelina continued to be involved with some aspect of the private school.  It was unusual for a married woman to be so active in this way.

Their second call was on Ellen Howard, daughter of Nancy (Johnson) Howard and Elijah Howard.  Mr. Howard was a sometime business partner of the Ames men and a prominent citizen of Easton.  Mrs. Howard was his third wife, he having buried his first two.  He had twelve children, of whom seven were with Nancy; Ellen was in the latter group.  In 1851, Ellen was seventeen, the same age as Frank Morton Ames, and she often socialized with the Ames sons.  In introducing Orinthia to Ellen, Evelina was perhaps hoping the two young women might become friends.  In the future, Orinthia would board with the Howards.  In Ellen’s future, in 1860, she would marry George Withington, a young minister who came to town to replace the departed William Whitwell.

The fine weather that allowed Evelina and Orinthia to travel around town disappeared by evening and ushered in a storm.  Such variability was to be expected this time of year.  It was March, after all.