Catholics

February 16, 1851

Hoarhound or horehound

Hoarhound or horehound

Sun Feb 16  Did not go to church to day on account of a bad

cough  Boiled Molasses, honey, & sugar and a little 

hoarhound for it.  Jane has been to meeting at the

boarding house.  Michael & sister called to see her.

Have been reading some in Margaret by Mr Judd

do not like it at all I believe I shall not finish it

but can spend my time for a better purpose

Mr Whitwell exchanged with Mr Lovell  Very pleasant

Evelina’s cold was long gone, but her cough lingered.  To make it better, she cooked up a nostrum that included hoarhound (or horehound), a medicinal herb cultivated for its efficacy as an expectorant.  She likely grew it in her kitchen garden, or knew where to find it wild.  Brewed with honey, sugar and molasses – the latter being recommended by many household guides as good for the throat –  Evelina’s dose of medicine was warm and comforting.

Her cough may have been real, but it probably wasn’t the only reason Evelina avoided going to meeting this morning.  At church, she would have had to face some of the women who had not attended her Sewing Circle meeting. Her feelings may still have been too hurt to do so and her cough made an excellent excuse for her absence.

Everyone else seemed to be practicing their faith today. The Ames family presumably all went to church and heard Reverend Stephen Lovell stand in for Reverend Whitwell; the two men had finally swapped meetings as originally planned a few weeks ago.  Jane McHanna, the Ames servant originally from Ireland, attended a Catholic service held in the dining room of the Ames boarding house, and apparently came home with fellow-countrymen Michael Burns, the Ames coachman, and his sister.

Today’s new book, Margaret by Reverend Sylvester Judd, did not pass muster.  Evelina started the novel, a story about a young woman raised in the wilds of Maine, and emphatically did “not like it at all.”   Reverend Judd, a Unitarian minister, was a peripheral member of the Transcendental circle; his book is considered one of a very few works of Transcendental fiction.  Margaret Fuller, author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century,  described it as a “work of great power and richness” but critics and other readers such as Evelina found the book incomprehensible.

January 19, 1851

Ride

1851 Jan 19th Sunday.  It was rather earlier than common this morning

when we had our breakfast as Jane was going to

meeting   We have all been to meeting all day

Mr Whitwell gave us two good sermons, though not

as interesting as usual.  After hearing the class in

the Sunday school I called at Mr Whitwells

This evening have been into Mr Bucks to a prayer meeting

Three Ladies spoke & a number of men.  Very pleasant

Before the Ames family left for church, their servant Jane McHanna was on her way to a Catholic service.  Every few weeks, an itinerant priest would ride into town to conduct Sunday mass in the dining room of a boarding house owned by the Ames shovel company.  Although North Easton offered several Protestant options to its church-going citizens, it had no Catholic church for the influx of faithful who had recently immigrated from Ireland.

The number of Roman Catholics in North Easton, as elsewhere in Massachusetts, was rapidly expanding.  In 1849, Reverend William Chaffin tells us, there were 45 Catholics in town.  By 1852, there were 150; when the Civil War began, there were 400.   As the number of Irish immigrants grew, a dedicated facility was clearly needed.  Recognizing this, in 1850 the Ames family donated a piece of land on Pond Street to the Irish to build their own church.  It was under construction as the year 1851 opened.

Evelina’s day was full of religious activity.  Not only did she hear “two good sermons,” she visited the Sunday school and, in the evening, went out to a prayer meeting held by Benjamin and Mary “Polly” Buck, who lived in a house in the near neighborhood that they rented from Old Oliver.