1851

January 18, 1851

Lid

/51 Jan 18 Saturday  I was very lazy this morning as usual after

being in Boston.  We tried out the suet & salted the 

quarter of beef & boiled the tripe  Jane has been

busy all day but I have not done much.  Have mended

the stockings painted Susans wooden dolls head & arms

Mr Robinson has at last finished painting our chimney

pieces.  it is 5 weeks since he commenced them & I could

not nail down the carpet  Mr Ames has been to Boston.  Pleasant.

It was back to domestic life today after an enjoyable trip to the city.  No more dining on oysters. The kitchen was humming with more familiar fare as Jane McHanna processed a huge gift of meat that Old Oliver had sent a few days back.  She may have kept it cold in the snow or in an ice house until today when they had time and table top to deal with it.

“Ox beef is considered the best,” noted Sarah Josepha Hale in her 1841 guide, The Good Housekeeper.  Lucky for Evelina’s family that Old Oliver raised his own oxen. Jane salted it, salting or “corning” being a time-honored way to preserve it. Typically, the beef was placed in a container – likely a barrel – and covered with a brine solution.  One recipe for brine in an 1858 cookbook* called for four gallons of water, two pounds of brown sugar and six pounds of salt.  Beef stored this way could keep for months.

The suet, which, strictly defined, is the fat from around the kidneys, was “tried,” meaning that it was boiled and rendered into lard.  The tripe, from the stomach, was boiled as well.  The odor from both these boilings was strong and would have been noticed throughout the house.

By her own confession, Evelina didn’t get too involved with anything going on in the kitchen today, leaving it to Jane’s good offices. Instead, she puttered here and there, unpacking, doing a little mending, painting her daughter’s wooden doll and standing over Mr. Robinson’s shoulder as he finally completed painting the mantels.   We might describe her day as “re-entry.”  Oakes, meanwhile, was in Boston on shovel business.

* Mary Peabody Mann, Christianity in the Kitchen

January 15, 1851

Corpse

1851

Jan 15 Wednesday  This morning after doing my usual

morning work went to Mr Carrs  to put the robe on the

corpse.  in the afternoon attended the funeral.  Mr

Whitwell spoke very well to the mourners & made a good

prayer  Mr Whitwell and Mr Reed were over to tea.  After

they went away I passed the evening at Olivers with Mr

& Mrs Peckham  Made a hair cloth cover for one of the

rocking chairs cushions and sewed in the evening on a

shirt

Today Evelina attended the first of several funerals she will go to over the course of her diary.  The death of young Lewis Carr won’t be the only case of consumption, either.  In this case, she helped the Carr family by sewing a robe for the body and dressing the corpse.  Death was familiar to women like Evelina; tending to its aftermath was one of their responsibilities.

And then life went on.  After the service, Evelina (with Jane McHanna’s help, certainly) served tea to Rev. Whitwell and Mr. Reed, another man from Easton.  There were several Reed families in town, so we can’t know for sure which Mr. Reed came to tea.  In her diary, Evelina mentions Daniel Reed most frequently.  Daniel was a carpenter, according to the census; today we might call him a builder.  In any case, he was well known to the Ameses.  His wife, Mary Reed, was a member of a sewing circle to which the Ames sisters-in-law belonged and the family attended the Unitarian church.

After dark, Evelina walked next door to Oliver Jr. and Sarah Lothrop Ames’s house to visit with Joseph and Susan Peckham.  She may have taken her work box with her to sew while they visited.  No doubt, they discussed the death of Lewis Carr.

January 14, 1851

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

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

/51

Jan 14  Tuesday.  This morning after taking care of my room went

to the store and into Mr Carrs to offer my assistance there.

Lewis Carr died last night very suddenly bleeding at the 

lungs.  Has been in a decline since last July but was about

the house as usual yesterday and conversed with O A and 

his friends in the evening & told what he was going to do when

he got well.  about ten or eleven Oclock called to his mother

to come quick which was the last word & died almost instantly

This afternoon carried Mr & Mrs Whitwell to A A Gilmores.

The “white plague,” consumption, was a killer; today we know it as tuberculosis and, in parts of the world, it’s still killing.  In 19th century America, it was a leading cause of death, the scourge of young lives, particularly.  Its contagious properties were unknown, which helped it spread.  Although different treatments, such as prolonged rest in warm climates, were tried (when possible), no cure for the disease would be found until the middle of the 20th century.  Some people did recover from TB; most did not.

Lewis Carr, a friend of Oakes Angier Ames, was barely 20 years old. He was the son of Caleb and Chloe Carr of North Easton where the family had lived for generations.  His father, known as “Uncle Caleb” in his later years, was a life-long employee of the shovel works and close to the Ames family.  So close, in fact, that two decades later, Caleb would serve as a pall-bearer at Oakes Ames’s funeral.

It is typical that Evelina would help the Carr family at this time.  She and her sisters-in-law were often called upon to sew the shrouds that corpses were wrapped in, which is what she did on this day for the family.

January 13, 1851

Washing

/51 Jan 13  Washing day of course, and I have been

about house in the morning as usual.  A Augustus dined

with us, come up in the stage.  Made a hair cloth back to

another rocking chair  Went to Mr Whitwells with Mr

Ames this evening, met with Alson & wife.  It is a

beautiful moonshiny evening and we have had a

pleasant ride and have enjoyed myself very much.  Mr &

Mrs Whitwell I like very much  Father killed another

yoke of oxen to day and we have a quarter & the tripe.

Boiled that we had last week to day.

Monday is Wash Day.  This might be a Yankee commandment, were there a written code.  History has it that the first day the Pilgrims got off the Mayflower was a Monday, and the first thing the women did after all those weeks at sea was to wash their clothes.  The timing stuck, and remained a custom for centuries.  On Mondays at the Ames house, Jane McHanna washed the family clothes and linens while Evelina did almost everything else in terms of housework and cooking.  Evelina was not fond of putting her hands into soapy water.

The roads around town must have improved.  This evening, Evelina and Oakes finally got over to the Whitwells’ house, presumbly for a delayed acknowledgment of Mr. Ames and Mr. Whitwell’s shared birthday.  Evelina clearly enjoyed herself.  Another couple was there: Alson and Henrietta Gilmore. Alson is Evelina’s older brother.  He owns the old family farm in the southeast corner of Easton, just north of the town of Raynham.  He and his wife have six children together, as well as a son from Alson’s first marriage.  This is Alson “Augustus” Gilmore, who had midday dinner at the Ames house today.  Augustus lives in Boston as the year opens but will soon move back to North Easton.  He does courier work for the Ames brothers.

Evelina is close to her nieces and nephews; their presence in her life, and her affection for them, is evident throughout the diary.  Less certain is the regard that other members of the Ames family held for the Gilmores; family lore has it that the two families moved in different social circles and that even into the 20th century, the Gilmore clan was looked down on by members of the Ames clan. From Evelina’s happy description of the day, however, we can surmise that she was unaware, on this lovely, “moonshiny” night, anyway, of any discrimination.

January 12, 1851

Preach

/51 Jan 12 Sunday  Have been to church all day and heard two

excellent sermons from Mr Whitwell.  The afternoon text was

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old

he will not depart from it”  Passed this evening at Mr Willard

Lothrop with Mr Ames & met with Minister Norris & Mr Torrey

This noon I stopped to hear Mr Whitwells class in the Sabbath

School afterwards went into Mr Daniel Reeds with Mother

Very warm + pleasant for the time of the year

The Ames family, Unitarians all, attended meeting today and stayed for both services, which encompassed a morning program, an intermission, and an afternoon program.  In their family pew, Evelina, Oakes, Oakes Angier, Oliver (3), Frank Morton and Susan sat with or near Old Oliver, Sarah Witherell and her children, George and Emily.  Also nearby, if not in the same pew, sat Oliver Jr, Sarah Lothrop Ames and their children, Fred and Helen, faces upturned to hear Reverend Whitwell deliver the day’s two sermons.  Eight-year old Susie may have squirmed in her seat; she wasn’t inclined to sit still for the second service.  And Oakes Ames was known to fall asleep, however inspiring Mr. Whitwell’s words were to Evelina.

In 1851, the Unitarians congregated at a church in Easton Centre, a few miles south of the village of North Easton (but still within the boundaries of the Town of Easton, Massachusetts.)  Like many families, the Ameses had to travel by carriage or sleigh to attend Sunday service.  The adults would have ridden, or “been carried,” as the expression went,  but the children may have had to walk the distance.  Children walking to church, regardless of distance, was common.  If this was true for the Ames family, we might imagine that cousins Oliver (3) and Fred walked together, as they were close friends.

At intermission, children went into Sunday School and the adults socialized.  Winthrop Ames, a grandson-to-be, described the scene in his family history (from 1937):

“They tethered their horses in a long, open shed and stayed through both morning and afternoon services, eating the luncheons they had brought and gossiping with the townsfolk during the intermission.”

On this winter Sunday Evelina and her mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore visited at the nearby home of Daniel and Mary Reed.  Socializing continued in the evening as Evelina and Oakes called on Willard Lothrop.

January 11, 1851

Workbox

/51 Jan 11 Saturday.  Made a haircloth back & cushion for one

of my rocking chairs.  Mrs Witherell brought in her work

and staid about two hours.  Willard Lothrop made

quite a long call.  Told Mrs W that he did think at one

time of coming to see her but she looked so dignified &c that

he could hardly muster courage &c &c  This evening have been

mending stockings & reading the papers.  Mr Ames has been

to Boston bought him a pr of Robbins.  Brought home watch

Very warm, pleasant but sloppy.  Bought 5 3/4 lbs Beef of C Lothrop

While Oakes made his usual Saturday trip into Boston, Evelina and Sarah Witherell sat together in the Ames’s front room, sewing. Evelina was completing a horsehair back and cushion for a rocking chair.  Horsehair upholstery was common in the 19th century, the haircloth being both durable and lustrous, plus relatively inexpensive.  Evelina, accomplished housewife that she was, would naturally have undertaken to do this work herself.

With their work boxes at hand, the two sisters-in-law sat, sewed and conversed until the arrival of a visitor, Willard Lothrop.  Mr. Lothrop, an employee at the shovel shop, was something of a character.  He was a self-declared medium and an impassioned advocate of spiritualism. (He may also have been related to both Evelina and her other sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames, through the Lothrop family line.  There were many Lothrops in the area.)

Spiritualism was a practice that claimed, in Reverend William Chaffin’s words, “that there is a vital connection between the seen and the unseen worlds by which communication between the two can be maintained.”  Though hardly a new concept, this American iteration took root in the mid-19th century and gained strength for a time after the Civil War.  Many in North Easton, especially those living along the Bay Road, were interested in it.

Lothrop, the purpose of whose call at the Ames house is not disclosed, focused his attention on Sarah Witherell, confessing that he found her unapproachable.  No mention of Evelina being inaccessible!  Lothrop offers us a rare, backdoor insight into the character, or the bearing at least, of the Ames sister of whom we know the least.  Except for her presence in Evelina’s diary, Sarah Witherell left almost no trace behind, no diary, no stories, no grandchildren, no legacy.  In a powerful, visible, active family, she may simply have been its most private member.

After Lothrop left, what did the ladies talk about?  And what are the “Robbins” that Oakes Ames bought in Boston?

January 10, 1851

tcrr_ames

/51

Jan 10th Friday.  Have been baking most all day  Heat

the oven three times.  It rained very hard last night

and carried off most all the snow and it is very wet

and sloppy.  Margaret Keighan here to see Jane.

This is Mr Ames & Mr Whitwells birth day  both

of the same age 47 years.  Have been expecting Mr & Mrs

Whitwell here this afternoon and as they did not come

would have rode there this evening but Mr Ames is engaged

If Evelina and Oakes had been able to visit the Whitwells tonight, they would have had to take the carriage rather than the sleigh because of recent heavy rain.  According to Old Oliver, the sudden wet and warm weather has “took the snow of[f] so much that it spoilt the slaying.”  Evelina, meanwhile, was so tied to the brick oven all day, baking mince meat pies and such , that she had a right to be a little disappointed not to go out this evening.

The Ames family, Puritan stock that they are, don’t overly celebrate anyone’s birthday.  Yet Evelina notes the shared birthday of her husband and the minister.  Oakes Ames was born in North Easton on this day in 1804.  He was the first child of an eventual eight to be born to Oliver Ames and Susannah Angier Ames.  The others to follow would be Horatio, Oliver Jr., Angier (d. in infancy) William Leonard, Sarah, John and Harriett.

Besides Oakes, Oliver Jr. and Sarah are the only siblings who still live in North Easton in 1851.  Except for a stint away at school, Oliver Jr. never moved away.  He and his wife live next door.  Sarah, on the other hand, left for New York in 1836 when she married Nathaniel Witherell, Jr.  Now a widow, she returned to North Easton in the late 1840s and moved back into the old homestead to care for her father after the death of her mother in 1847.

The absentee siblings are away but never forgotten; among the brothers, especially, business deals are ongoing.  Horatio, the black sheep of the clan, lives in Connecticut and runs a forge.  William Leonard had been in New York City and Albany, working as a merchant who sold, among other items, Ames shovels.  When those enterprises failed, he switched to managing a blast furnace, in keeping with the family talent for manufacturing.  But this proved unprofitable, too. By 1851, William Leonard was making his way as a cattleman on the Minnesota frontier.  John, who had also moved to New York City, died in 1844 of a chronic lung ailment.  Harriett is married to a man from Bridgewater named Asa Mitchell, and at this time lives in western Pennsylvania.

As a boy, Oakes moved with his parents to Plymouth while his father worked at various manufacturing efforts, although shovel making predominated.  The family moved back to North Easton in 1813, after the conclusion of the War of 1812, whereupon Old Oliver threw himself into the manufacture of shovels. After that, the family stayed put.

January 3, 1851

Oakes Ames

Oakes Ames

Friday Jan 3

Got breakfast this morning about 1/2 past 6 Oclock

Worked about house most all day.  Did not sew but

a very little   Finished a letter to Pauline Dean for

Mr. Ames to mail at Boston    O A wrote a few lines and

sent her a pr of Cuff pins   Mr Ames has the ague in his

face.  Read untill half past nine in the papers.

Pauline writes that Mrs Brooks & little boy are there

Came with Mr Reed.  Mr Brooks is to come for them

“Mr. Ames” is Oakes Ames, of course: Evelina’s husband.  “O A” is their eldest son, Oakes Angier Ames.  With one notable exception that occurs much later in her diary, Evelina always referred to her husband using his surname.  That a woman of her age and upbringing would be so formal in talking about her husband shouldn’t surprise us; in 1851, anyone with a similar education and background would have done the same.  The 19th century was a formal century.  Titles and surnames were used in conversation, in correspondence and even in a diary that, presumably, would be read only by its author.

“Ague” is an old term for fever, usually defined as “chills and fever.”  So how Oakes Ames had a fever in his face is hard to imagine.  Perhaps this was a country expression for having a cold or sinus pain in one’s head.  Certainly, it was the time of year for colds and illness.  The ague affliction stayed with Oakes for several days during a spell of weather that his father, Old Oliver, described as “verry cold.”  Something like January 3, 2014!