Edwin Manley

June 10, 1851

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June 10th 

Tuesday  Worked all the forenoon and part of the afternoon

weeding the flowers.  Got some Petunias at Mr Savages

The gardener has been to work in my flower

garden most all day weeding and fixing the

beds, has made them wider  This afternoon have

been mending Franks & Olivers pants

Mrs Witherell & Mitchell & Miss Eaton walked

up to Edwins garden.  Abby & Miss Smith called

Bridget ONeil here to work to day

 

The weather was fine enough that sisters Sarah Ames Witherell and Harriett Ames Mitchell took a long walk north toward Stoughton with their houseguest, Miss Eaton. They headed to Edwin Manley’s garden, a much-visited spot, to see what he had growing. Being on foot, it’s doubtful that they purchased anything to bring home. They may have ordered something to be delivered, however.

In the morning, Evelina went out to look at flowers, too, at the nearby home of William Savage, a shovelworker, and brought home some petunias.  Petunias, a great garden favorite in the latter half of the nineteenth century, originated in South America, appeared in Europe by 1800, but had only recently become available in the United States. Petunias were still so exotic, in fact, that they didn’t appear in the list of annuals in Breck’s Book of Flowers, published in Boston in 1851. How did Mr. Savage come upon them?

The Ames’s new gardener, who had been with the family for almost a month, weeded the flower beds today and worked at making them wider. Evelina’s parlor garden was becoming more and more ambitious. And for some reason, Bridget O’Neil, a servant, worked at Evelina’s today. She had been working next door at Oliver and Sarah Lothrop Ames’ house.  Where was Jane McHanna?

May 17, 1851

Plant

1851

May 17  About eight Oclock this morning

Orinthia & I rode to Mr Manlys to get some plants for

our garden  He kept us there a long while talking

about them and calling over the long names untill we

almost despaired of getting any  At last we got a few

and come home & set them out & called at Mr

Savages, got a few there  This afternoon we have had

a shower.  I mended the stockings &c &c

 

With help from her boarder and young friend, Orinthia, Evelina was making headway everyday in her garden. Early this Saturday morning, the two women rode once again to Edwin Manley’s for plants. Mr. Manley, a knowledgeable and somewhat eccentric fellow, kept the ladies “there a long while” discussing the selection of plants, going over their Latin names and properties. Let’s hope that Evelina’s impatience to be on her way didn’t spoil his clear appreciation of the flowers he could offer her.

From Mr. Manley’s, the eager gardeners went on to yet another source for plants. William Savage was an employee at the shovel shop. Unlike Mr. Manley and Mr. Clapp, he lived in the neighborhood of North Easton. He grew petunias, which were a fairly new flower for the home gardener, among other plants. Evelina was collecting all kinds of specimens for her parlor garden.

Other growers were less sanguine than Evelina about the prospect of the coming growing season.  Old Oliver, Evelina’s crusty father-in-law, noted in his daily journal that  “this was a fair day in the forenoon with a strong south west wind it was cloudy in the afternoon + a verry little rain and rather cool. the ground is verry wett + the season backward about doing the planting”.  Backward season or not, the planting – and gardening – had to go forward.

May 15, 1851

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Ames Long Pond

May 15

Thursday  I was intending to go to Boston with Mrs S Ames

this morning but she has the ague in her face

which prevented and lucky for me that I did

not go for about twelve Oclock Lavinia, Ann Pool,

and Francis, came and this afternoon Abby.  We all

rode to Edwins and Mr Clapps garden and to the ponds

Jane cleaned the […] buttery, and I was working

in the chambers when they came

 

Sarah Ames was sick once again, this time with what was probably a head cold, so a planned outing to Boston was called off. Sarah had been quite ill for much of the spring; perhaps she hadn’t given herself enough time to recover and was now suffering a relapse.

Normally, Evelina would have been disappointed to miss a trip to Boston, especially as she still needed to buy a bonnet, but a visit from a set of young relatives made for a happy alternative.  Her nieces Lavinia Gilmore and Abby Torrey, nephew Francis Gilmore, and a young friend of theirs, Ann Pool, arrived and rescued her from choring. With Francis holding the reins, presumably, the group rode north toward Stoughton, where they stopped at two farms to look at garden plants, one farm belonging to Edwin Manley, the other to Lucius Clapp.

They also rode by the ponds, including Ames Long Pond, which sits on the boundary between Easton and Stoughton. Most likely they also rode by Flyaway Pond which had been created only six years earlier, in 1845, to supply more water power from the Queset River to the shovel factory. Queset, according to historian Ed Hands, was “the most heavily used of all the drainage systems” in the watersheds of Easton.*  The shovel business would never have started in Easton had it not been for the Queset (Brook) River; O. Ames & Sons absolutely relied on it for decades.

Flyaway Pond is no longer configured the way Evelina and her companions would have seen it during their pleasant afternoon ride. It collapsed during a huge flood in March, 1968, wreaking havoc and causing considerable property damage.   As Hands points out, that 20th century flood washed away an important symbol of the Ames period in Easton, that of the control of the Queset River for commercial purposes.  Evelina couldn’t imagine that future for Flyaway Pond, of course; she could only enjoy riding past it and Ames Long Pond – and others, perhaps? –  in the spring air.

*Edmund C. Hands, Easton’s Neighborhoods, 1995

 

 

April 29, 1851

CultivationToolsBP

April 29 Tuesday  Frank has finished the beds in the flower

garden and I have set out some plants that Henrietta

gave me and some that I bought of Edwin Manly paid

him one dollar Julia here finishing the dresses for

Susan & my blue Delaine dress.  Mrs George Ames

& I went to Sharon and spent the afternoon

Had a pleasant ride with Dominic

 

Three spheres of activity informed Evelina’s day. First was gardening, made possible by Frank Morton Ames finally finishing tilling the soil in the flower beds.  He and others had been loosening the soil off and on for several days, which raises the question of how many flower beds Evelina had, and how large they were, and where they were situated relative to the house. Evelina “set out” some plants that she got on Saturday. One group came from her sister-in-law, Henrietta Lincoln Gilmore, at the Gilmore farm; she probably got those for free.  The other group from Edwin Manley, however, she had to pay one dollar for.

The second sphere of action was sewing, of course, which always seemed to be going on in center ring at the Ames house. Today Julia Mahoney, the dressmaker of choice, worked on a dress for Susan and a blue delaine, or light wool, dress for Evelina. The warm weather would soon arrive and the lighter dresses would be needed.

The last sphere was a nice change of pace – literally – for Evelina and her cousin-in-law, Almira Ames. With Dominic, a horse, pulling them along, the two women drove the carriage (or were driven) to nearby Sharon. Whom did they visit? Did they shop in the town?  The ride was pleasant, whatever the errand.

 

April 26, 1851

Spade

Sat Apr 26th  This morning a man came from the shops 

to spade my flower garden & hoe the currant

bushes Miss Foss Susan & self rode to Edwin Manlys

to speak for some plants and then went to Mothers

got there about half past twelve. Brought

home some Horseradish, Carraway roots & some

few plants Made the skirt to Susans green 

borage Delaine Miss Foss has finished the two shirts.

At last, gardening in earnest. A shovel shop employee was taken off his usual task to go up to the Ames homestead to turn over the soil in Evelina’s flower beds.  He used an Ames shovel, no doubt, and also an Ames hoe to loosen the dirt around the currant bushes behind the house.

Evelina celebrated the spring day with her daughter Susie and boarder Orinthia Foss; the three took a wagon, most likely, north to the home of Edwin Manly.  At the time, Manly lived close to the town line with Stoughton, and was employed at the shovel shop. He was obviously interested in plants and kept an informal nursery on his farm, raising flowers to sell.  His green thumb brought in customers like Evelina. Not too long after this, however, he hurt his hand and had to leave his job at O. Ames & Sons. Fascinated by biology, chemistry and science in general, he studied medicine at Harvard, became a physician and set up an office in North Easton in the early 1860s. Later he moved to Taunton, where he worked as the town librarian for a number of years. Eventually, he moved to California.

Flowers weren’t all that the women brought home in the wagon.  They drove south to the other end of Easton to visit Evelina’s mother, Hannah Gilmore, at the Gilmore farm, where they picked up the horseradish and caraway roots and “some few plants.”   That Evelina and Orinthia had time to sew after all that riding around says a lot about their stamina and work ethic.