Frederick Lothrop Ames | evelinaames

January 10, 1852

Portrait of Oakes Ames by Matthew Brady

1852

Jan 10th Saturday Mr Whitwell & Ames have not met again

to day Mr W called just as Augusta Helen Susan

& self were in the sleigh to take a ride We have

called at mothers Mr Horace & John Pool, Edwin

& wife here to tea Swept the parlor this morning

and put the house in order partially frosted a loaf of cake

for Augusta having made one of hers carried the frosting

over and made her a call while heating it

The boys presented their Father a gold pen & pencil

Oakes Ames turned 48 years old today, as did the local Unitarian minister, William Whitwell. Last year and again this year, Evelina was unsuccessful in getting the two men together to celebrate. Oakes Angier and Frank Morton gave their father a gold pen and pencil to mark the occasion, a fine gesture.

As Oakes closed in on the half-century mark, he presumably began to look beyond the confines of the work he and his brother Oliver Jr. did for the shovel company. The next generation, in fact, was being groomed to run O. Ames & Sons; Oakes Angier, as eldest son of the eldest son, was on deck to superintend the company whenever Oakes and Oliver Jr. decided to step down. He was learning every aspect of the manufacturing process. Oliver (3) and Fred Ames were at college, Oliver presumably honing the skills he would need to take over his father’s role in managing sales, while Fred was on a path to being the financial clerk or CFO we might say today. Frank Morton Ames was learning a variety of skills, too, although he was seen more as a spare man waiting to step in should his cousin or either older brother fail somehow.

What could Oakes do with his tremendous talent and energy? Clearly, the roiling politics of the day interested him. By 1860, his gregarious nature, quick comprehension and thirsty ambition led him to accept the nomination and election to Massachusetts Governor Andrew’s Council as representative from Bristol County. Two years later, by “a large popular vote,”* Oakes Ames was then elected to the Thirty-Eighth U. S. Congress, where he would serve for four terms.

In 1872, according to circumspect historian, Reverend William L. Chaffin, Oakes “declined a renomination.”* He died in May, 1873, shortly after the conclusion of Credit Mobilier, a national political scandal for which many held Oakes culpable. At the time, his natural candor and fearlessness worked against him and he was unable to dodge the political manuevering that placed most of the blame on him. That same brave honesty, coupled today with calmer, historical perspective, has since served to cast Oakes Ames in a better light.

* William L. Chaffin, History of Easton, Massachusetts, 1886, p. 654

January 2, 1852

1852

Jan 2d Friday Seated myself quite early this morning to work

on Susans hood & finished item about ten Oclock

then ripped my old blue hood and washed the

lining & turned the outside have got it nearly done

We all went into the other part of the house to tea

Mr & Mrs Oliver & Helen there Frank has a sore

ankle as [sic] does not go to the shop Dr Swan called there

to see Helen & left Jane some medicine

The family gathered for tea today in “the other part of the house,” meaning that Evelina, Oakes, and their children, Oakes Angier, Frank and Susan went into the southern half of the shared house where Old Oliver and his widowed daughter, Sarah Witherell, lived with her two children, George and Emily. Joining them was the family next door: Oliver Ames, Jr, his wife Sarah and their daughter, Helen Angier Ames, who made an appearance despite being home from school with a cold. Other than missing Oliver (3) and Frederick Lothrop, the sons who were off at college, the group was a normal configuration for a gathering at the homestead.

Evelina’s grandson, Winthrop Ames, would one day describe such a family gathering from less than a decade later, by which time daughters-in-law and grandchildren had arrived:

“Supper, always called Tea, at seven, was the sociable occasion. It usually consisted of cold meats, hot biscuits, preserves and cakes – an easy menu to expand for unexpected guests. Every week at least, and usually oftener, one household would invite the others and their visitors to tea; and the whole Ames family might assemble, even infant children being brought along and tucked into bed upstairs. Fifteen or twenty was not at all an unusual gathering.”*

The family was as tightly-knit as any of Evelina’s knitted worsted hoods.

One other note about today’s entry: Dr. Swan left some medicine off for Jane McHanna, the servant, who had been ailing for much of the fall and winter. What did she suffer from?

* Winthrop Ames, The Ames Family of Easton, Massachusetts, privately printed, 1937, p.128

November 29, 1851

Nov 29th Sat. This forenoon have been mending

Olivers (3) clothes and putting them in order to

carry back Monday. Have been with Oliver

to spend the afternoon at Mothers. Came

home by Mr Lothrops to bring Sarah Lothrop

Fred & Helen home Alson has been quite

unwell a week or more & is not able to work

Evelina was enjoying the company of her middle son, Oliver (3), today. Like many a modern child, he had brought his clothes home from college to be put “in order” (but not washed – it wasn’t laundry day.) Evelina mended what she could and then the two of them rode south to visit old Mrs. Gilmore and the family on the farm. They found that Alson Gilmore, Evelina’s brother, had been “quite unwell.” He was evidently bed-ridden, which suggests that their Thanksgiving had been less celebratory than the Ames’s.

Unlike the shovel laborers in the village, Alson did work that didn’t follow a schedule set by a bell. He labored according to the demands of the season, weather and livestock. How had he managed to run his farm this past week when he was too ill to work? Most likely his fifteen-year-old son, Francis, took over responsibility for any livestock. And if the Gilmores had any dairy cows, it was typically the women of the house – in this case, daughter Lavinia or wife Henrietta – who would typically have done the milking. Because it was November, and after the harvest, there was otherwise not much work that demanded attention.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, seen above, would have been full of advice for Alson and other farmers. We don’t know if Alson consulted it. (Like Old Oliver Ames, he might have consulted instead an agricultural newspaper called The Massachusetts Ploughman.) The almanac was just featuring its new “Four Seasons” cover, first used in October of 1851 and still in use in 2014. It was designed by Hammatt Billings, a Boston architect and artist who also did the original illustrations for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and engraved by Henry Nichols of Cambridge, who name appears on the lower right. The editor was Robert B. Thomas, whose portrait is featured on the right side of the cover, opposite Benjamin Franklin.

November 25, 1851

Tues Nov 25th Mary has done the ironing to day except

the fine clothes and they look much better than usual

Jane is rather better to day and has washed the dishes

and assisted some about the housework. I have made a

dickey for Mr Ames. Passed the afternoon at Father Ames

with Mr & Mrs Swain & Mrs Meader Mrs S Ames,

Fred & Helen came home to night

Family members began to gather in anticipation of Thanksgiving. Fred and Helen Ames came home from their respective schools in Cambridge and Boston, adding animation to the quieter house next door. Surely their parents, Sarah Lothrop and Oliver Ames, Jr., were pleased to see them. Oliver (3), away at school in Providence, was getting ready for his travel home.

No one was making merry yet, however. Everyone still had work to do. The new girl, Mary, did some ironing, evidently better than Jane McHanna usually did. Jane herself, still recovering from an illness that had laid her low for almost ten days, was able to wash dishes and help out a bit. Evelina, after supervising Mary and Jane, was finally freed up to sew and socialize. She was in a happier state of mind.

The men of the family were working as well. While Oakes, Oliver Jr, Oakes Angier, and Frank Morton were at the shovel shop, Old Oliver and some of his men began “a building an ice hous.”**

“About sunsett,” it began to snow.

*Image of a mid-19th century kitchen, Courtesy of http://www.victorianpassage.com

**Oliver Ames, Journal, Courtesy of Stonehill College Archives, Tofias Collection

September 24, 1851

Wedns Sept 24th Susan has had another night of

suffering and has not slept but little if any but this

morning she appeared better and has had a more

comfortable day than I expected she would have Helen

brought in her doll for her to play with and she

has had three to play with which has taken […] her

mind from her sickness in a great measure.

Francis dined here carried home Mr & Mrs Whitwell

The nettle rash, or hives, that had attacked Susie Ames began to subside this morning, surely bringing relief not only to the little girl, but to her mother and everyone else interested in her welfare. As Susie began to feel better, she became agreeably occupied with an extra doll brought in for her to play with by her older cousin from next door, Helen Angier Ames.

Helen’s mother, Sarah Lothrop Ames, and Harriett Ames Mitchell left Easton today to go into Boston and Cambridge for a night. Perhaps they visited Sarah’s sixteen-year-old son Fred Ames at Harvard, where he was a new sophomore. Fifteen-year-old Francis E. Gilmore, the youngest son of Evelina’s brother Alson Gilmore, came to the Ames’s for midday dinner. Was he visiting the construction site of his older brother, Edwin Williams Gilmore, who was building a home close to Ames compound? Francis lived down on the family farm, and was able to give a ride south to William and Eliza Whitwell, who had been visiting Sarah Witherell.

Meanwhile, focused and persistent, Old Oliver continued to supervise construction of a new flume from Great Pond near Stoughton south to the waterflow in North Easton. He noted in his daily journal that “this was a fair day with a strong wind from the north west and pritty cold. we got on the top stone to our floom to day.”

August 29, 1851

Friday Aug 29th Alson & Mr Hall came early this

morning and were here to dinner & tea, brought Pauline

with them Have been mending for Oliver getting his

clothes ready for school Went with Pauline to Edwins

garden he has not many pretty flowers in blossom has

some fine Dahlias got 5 lbs of butter at Mr Marshalls

after we came back went into Olivers to hear Pauline

play. George & wife & Sarah gone to her fathers

The day after Clinton Lothrop’s funeral, Sarah Lothrop Ames, her brother George Van Ness Lothrop and his wife Almira spent the day, at least, at the Lothrop farm with their parents, Howard and Sally Lothrop. They would have had to make long-term plans for the property, now that Clinton wouldn’t be there to tend the family farm.

Alson Gilmore, Evelina’s brother, took his meals at the Ames’s today. He was working nearby, perhaps with Mr. Hall, helping his son, Edwin Williams Gilmore, build a house. They were putting in the cellar. Pauline Dean, who must have been staying with or near the Gilmores, returned for a visit. She probably got roped into helping Evelina with the mending.

Evelina had a lot of mending to do, as Oliver (3) was preparing to go off to school. Like his cousin Fred Ames, he was going to attend an Ivy League college, but in Providence, not Cambridge. Oliver (3) would be going to Brown, and his mother had to get his clothes ready. Shirt fronts, collars and hose weren’t her only business today, however. She and Pauline took a break from domesticity and went to Edwin Manley’s to see his garden. There they saw “some fine dahlias.”

Dahlias, which had been introduced in the United States early in the 1800s, had quickly became popular, although not yet listed in Joseph Breck’s Book of Flowers. So successful were they that over the course of the century more than 10,000 varieties were developed or identified and sold. Today, dahlias are still much admired by flower gardeners, yet less than a dozen of those 19th century heirloom examples still exist in cultivation.* The earliest known, White Aster (above) dates from 1879.

*oldhousegardens.com

August 28, 1851

Thursday Aug 28th Have done but very little sewing to day.

Mrs Fullerton Abby & Malvina here to tea. Mr & Mrs

Whitwell called. Mr Whitwell walked up and sent

Mr Tilden with a carriage for his wife. Mrs Hyde

Mrs James Mitchell & Mrs Watson came from E Bridgewater

& Mrs Watson & Peckham to the other part of the house

to tea. Alson here to dinner & tea

Frederick left for Cambridge this morning

There was much socializing in North Easton today, but it paled in importance when compared to the departure of Frederick Lothrop Ames for college. Though only 16 years old, Fred was entering Harvard College as a sophomore, making him a member of the class of 1854.

A notable nineteenth-century commentator would arrive at Harvard just after Fred had graduated. Henry Adams, Class of 1858, would have this to say about the college in Cambridge before the Civil War:

“Harvard College, as far as it educated at all, was a mild and liberal school, which sent young men into the world with all they needed to make respectable citizens, and something of what they wanted to make useful ones. Leaders of men it never tried to make. Its ideals were altogether different. The Unitarian clergy had given to the College a character of moderation, balance, judgment, restraint, what the French call mesure, excellent traits, which the College attained with singular success, so that its graduates could commonly be recognised by the stamp, but such a type of character rarely lent itself to autobiography. In effect, the school created a type, but not a will. Four years of Harvard College, if successful, resulted in an autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a water-mark had been stamped.”**

Was Fred Ames stamped by his time at Harvard? He certainly appreciated his years there, and became “warmly interested in everything that pertained to the welfare of Harvard, as evinced by his well-known liberal gifts to several of its departments.”***

* Alexander Jackson Davis, “Harvard University,” Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1850

** Henry Adams, Education of Henry Adams

*** Harvard “Report for Class of 1854,” 1894

August 4, 1851

[No entry]

Evelina made no entry today in her diary, for reasons we’ll never know. Too hot? Too cross? Too busy? Too much laundry? We can only guess.

Instead of commentary, we’ve posted an image of the Ames family tree familiar to many Ames descendants, especially those who own copies of Winthrop Ames’s 1937 family history, The Ames Family of Easton, which includes a fold-out version of this illustration. The tree features the lineage of the two Ames brothers who stayed in North Easton: Oakes and Oliver Jr., but doesn’t include the other sons and daughters of Old Oliver and Susannah who also produced issue: Horatio, William Leonard, Sarah Witherell and Harriett Mitchell.

Some readers have asked for clarification on who was who within the family. What follows is a list of the children and grandchildren of Old Oliver and Susannah. More information about this group and their descendants can be found in a detailed family geneaology produced by William Motley Ames and Chilton Mosely Ames in the late 1980s.

Old Oliver and Susannah’s children and their children in birth order:

Oakes Ames and Evelina Gilmore Ames had five children:

Oakes Angier, Oliver (3), Frank Morton, Henry Gilmore (d. young) and Susan Eveline Ames

Horatio Ames and Sally Hewes Ames had three children:

Susan Angier, Horatio Jr., and Gustavus Ames

Oliver Jr. and Sarah Lothrop Ames had two children:

Frederick Lothrop and Helen Angier Ames

William Leonard Ames and Amelia Hall Ames had seven children:

William Leonard Jr., Angier, Oliver, John Hall, Amelia Hall, Fisher, and Herbert M. Ames

William Leonard Ames and Anna Pratt Hines had one child:

Oakes Keene Ames

Sarah Angier Ames and Nathaniel Witherell, Jr. had three children:

George Oliver, Sarah Emily, and Channing Witherell (d. young)

Harriett Ames and Asa Mitchell had three children:

Frank Ames, John Ames, and Anna Mitchell

Two other children of Old Oliver and Susannah, Angier Ames and John Ames, died without issue.

July 18, 1851

1851

Friday July 18 This forenoon finished my Silk Muslin dress

made a chimisette for it Mother is not at all well

and is not easy cannot stay in one place a great while

Oliver went with Mrs S Ames after Helen. Got to

Dorchester about 5 Oclock and home about half past nine

The weather is hot and uncomfortable. Fred returned

to night having passed a good examination

Fred Ames was accepted at Harvard! He shared the good news with his relatives when he returned to North Easton this evening. He did well on his examination, which perhaps constituted some combination of interview and oral or written test of the depth of his knowledge. How proud his parents must have been, and what relief he must have felt to have the entrance hurdle behind him.

Fred’s life was now moving in a fresh direction but otherwise, things in North Easton were much the same as he had left them the day before. Under a hot and humid sky, Evelina was sewing and looking after her mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, who wasn’t feeling well. Fred’s parents, Oliver Jr. and Sarah Lothrop Ames, meanwhile, had driven off to fetch his sister, Helen, from school in Dorchester.

Today’s sewing project was a chemisette for Evelina’s newest dress, the silk muslin that she and dressmaker Julia Mahoney had been working on this week. The chemisette was a light blouse designed to be worn under the jacket bodice of the dress. Hers probably wasn’t as elaborate as the chemisette in the illustration.

July 17, 1851

1851

July 17 Mother & myself have had a very quiet forenoon

Some expected Cassander Gilmore here but they

have set so many times that Im thinking they will

not come at all. About 4 Oclock I went to N. Bridge

water with Mrs Sarah Ames & Mrs Mitchell to carry

Fred to the cars for Cambridge to be examined for

the Sophomore year

Cassander Gilmore, the relative who was mentioned as a “no-show” visitor today, was a prominent shoe manufacturer in Raynham, Massachusetts. His failed visit was incidental to the bigger news of the day: Frederick Lothrop Ames’s departure for Cambridge.

Barely sixteen years old, Fred Ames visited Harvard College today “to be examined” for acceptance. He had just completed a year (or more) at Phillips Exeter Academy and, despite his young age, was seeking entrance to college. Harvard was the place for just such a bright fellow.

Fred seemed both prepared and motivated for college, and his parents, Sarah Lothrop Ames and Oliver Ames Jr., supported the idea of higher education for him, perhaps for a variety of reasons. This was an age, according to Henry Adams, when parents “began sending their children to Harvard for the sake of its social advantages.”* Sarah and Oliver Jr. were ambitious for their only son, but the question remains why they – or he – requested entry for the sophomore rather than the freshman year.

With his future riding on the examination ahead of him, Fred must have been at least a little anxious about the trip. His mother and Aunts Evelina and Harriett may have sensed some apprehension on his part, and tried to bolster his spirits as they rode along to the train station in North Bridgewater. They may also have simply been exercising their right to behave as many fond relatives behave when their young ones leave for school: with overt affection. Fred may have been relieved, actually, to wave goodbye to them at the depot.

* Ronald Story, The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800-1870, Wesleyan University Press, 1980.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: