Evelina Gilmore Ames

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 9, 1851

images

/51

Jan 9th Thursday

This morning after cleaning my room & doing

my usual mornings work, finished my collars & the

book Mr Whitwell brought.  Cut Susan a sack out of

her plaid cloak.  Prepared some mince pie meat ready

for baking & this evening have been writing in this book.

Had to take the foregoing from memory.  Mr Ames, ague in his face

and come home from the office very early.  Has been

troubled with it several days.  Unpleasant this afternoon

Oakes Ames still had his head cold and came home early from work, something almost unheard of.  He was always on the go. Evelina, meanwhile, worked in the cook room preparing mince meat, a lengthy process that calls for a lot of chopping of meat and suet, not to mention the “stoning” of raisins.

Sarah Josepha Hale, intrepid editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, had nothing nice to say about mince meat pies. In her book, The Good Housekeeper (1841), she urged American housewives to serve mincemeat only on special occasions:

“The custom of eating mince pies at Christmas, like that of plumb puddings, was too firmly rooted for the ‘Pilgrim fathers’ to abolish; so it would be vain for me to attempt it.  At Thanksgiving, too, they are considered indispensable; but I may be allowed to hope that during the remainder of the year, this rich, expensive and exceedingly unhealthy diet will be used very sparingly by all who wish to enjoy sound sleep or pleasant dreams.”

Evelina was a regular reader of  Godey’s Lady’s Book, but she paid scant attention to Mrs. Hale’s admonishment against mince meat pies.  She served them often; they were a familiar presence at the Ames dinner table.  Considering  the large family to be fed, including three physically active sons between ages 17 and 21, and the ready availability of meat and suet from the oxen provided by her father-in-law, it’s small wonder that Evelina turned to a dish that was hearty and filling.   Mincemeat was a standard in many farming families.

January 5, 1851

Thermometer

Sun Jan 5   Had to do my own housework to day and did not get

it done in season to go to church  Our Lazy boys did not

rise untill nearly nine Oclock.  No meeting this afternoon

Mr Whitwell attended the funeral of Asa Howards child

Mrs McHanna came home in season to get tea.  Went

with S A to see Miss Eaton found her able to sit up 

most of the day.  She has a bad cough & is failing.

After I came back made a call in the other part of the house

There was no church for the Ames family today.  Without the help of their servant, Jane McHanna, Evelina had to get breakfast and dinner by herself, and didn’t finish the preparations in time to get to morning service at the meeting house.   Oakes Angier, Oliver (3) and Frank Morton, perhaps seizing a rare opportunity, slept late despite their mother’s evident disapproval. The afternoon service, which the family also usually attended, was cancelled.

Truth told, Evelina may have been grateful not to make the two mile ride to church. The weather that day, according to Old Oliver, continued “verry cold,” reported at 14 below zero by “the Mr Pools” who lived several miles south of the Ameses. The Pools would know; they manufactured thermometers. Jane McHanna, meanwhile, had to bear the cold on her drive back from Mansfield, returning to North Easton in time to prepare tea.

Despite the cold, Evelina and  Sarah Ames paid a visit to a sick woman in the neighborhood. Calling on the sick was something that Evelina and her sisters-in-law often did. Although there were doctors in town, there was no hospital, nor was there a habit of placing the seriously ill in a hospital.  People were taken care of at home, by family, friends, and townspeople like the Ames women.  Miss Eaton was suffering from tuberculosis or consumption, as it was known.  Evelina, Sarah Ames, and Sarah Witherell visited her often, taking food and helping the family with whom Miss Eaton was living.

Sarah Ames and Sarah Witherell are sisters-in-law.  Sarah Ames is married to Oakes’s brother Oliver, Jr.  Sarah Witherell is Oakes’s sister.  Both women are younger than Evelina; all three women live in close proximity.

January 2, 1851

Evelina Gilmore Ames

Evelina Gilmore Ames

1851

Jan 2 Thursday  I sit down to my sewing pretty early this morning.  Had

some squash pies made   Quinn & wife carried Mrs McHanna

to Mansfield about 2 Oclock PM soon after Mrs Peckham

came & passed the afternoon & evening.  I had to get my own

tea.  Isabel washed dishes.  Mr P[eckham] came in about eight

Thomas Davidson & wife at Olivers [Jr] this evening  Frank went

to A A Gilmores with Quinn  Not able to work  Looked 

over a barrell of Apples & locked them up from the boys

Evelina had to do without her servant, Jane McHanna, this afternoon and thus made her own tea.   Isabel Orel, who usually worked for Sarah Witherell and “Father Ames” (known today as the original Ames patriarch, Old Oliver), helped Evelina by washing dishes.  Jane McHanna, meanwhile, was driven to nearby Mansfield where she may have had family.  Jane came from Ireland, originally, as did Isabel Orel, Patrik Quinn, and most of the domestic employees in the village.

John Peckham worked in the counting house at O. Ames and Sons shovel factory; he and his wife Susan would move away from North Easton this year.  Thomas Davidson, a merchant and the town’s  postmaster, spent the evening with his wife Betsey at the next-door home of Evelina’s brother-in-law Oliver Ames Jr and his wife Sarah Lothrop Ames.

And “the boys,” from whom Evelina had to safeguard the winter’s supply of apples?  They were the sons of Evelina and Oakes Ames: Oakes Angier Ames (often referred to as “O A”), Oliver Ames (the third of that name, who, for the purposes of clarity, will be identified with a “3” after his name), and Frank Morton Ames, the youngest and wildest brother of the three.   OA is 21 as the year opens, Oliver is a month shy of turning 20, and Frank is 17; he spent part of this day with his older cousin Augustus Gilmore.  Strapping young men, they work at the shovel shop six days a week.  Small wonder that they have prodigious appetites, thus causing their mother to lock up the apple barrel to protect the supply.