Jane McHanna | evelinaames

April 2, 1851

1851 Wednesday

April 2nd Jane & myself have been taking care of a hog

that was killed yesterday. Have the lard tried

sausages made fat back & hams salted and the whole

hog already for cooking. This afternoon Jane ironed

seven fine bosom shirts. This evening have been reading

being to[o] much fatigued to work. Augustus went to

Boston

It was a busy day in the Ames kitchen as Evelina and her servant, Jane McHanna, set about preserving one of the pigs that Evelina’s father-in-law, Old Oliver, had slaughtered the day before. He sold some of the pork, but held back at least one of the animals for his own household. Evelina and Jane had a long day’s work processing the animal, which had weighed about 300 pounds when slaughtered.

As the women broke the animal down into workable pieces, they “tried the lard,” which meant that they boiled much of the pork fat in water on the top of the stove, taking care to avoid the spattering as the fat popped and the water drew down. The resulting lard was cooled and stored, probably in stoneware jars, for future household use.

Also to be cooked in the future were the big hams, ribs, hocks and more. The large hams were salted and hung in a safe place like the cellar or a smokehouse until ready to be baked or boiled and eaten, while smaller pieces like the ham hocks would have gone into glass jars or stoneware. Everything got prepared, even sausages, which was a process unto itself, what with grinding the meat, mixing in the herbs and spices, and packing the mixture into the intestinal casing.

In addition to all this, Jane found both time and energy to iron “seven fine bosom shirts.” The cookstove, which had been heated for trying the lard, must have been hot enough to heat up the flatirons. Perhaps not wanting to waste that good energy, Jane set up the table to iron.

Those two women must have slept well this night.

March 31, 1851

1851

March 31st Monday This morning after doing my chores about

house, cut out a shirt of rather coarse unbleached

cloth for Mr Ames, am going to put a linen

bosom into it. Also cut a coarse shirt for

Oliver, have been mending some, but have not

sewed any on the shirts. Called this afternoon

on Mr Holmes & at Bridgets to see the dress

maker, Worked awhile on my scrap book. Orinthia

& I spent the evening at Olivers, Jane at G. Bartletts P.M.

After her morning chores on this last day of March, Evelina cut out more shirt parts. Any reader who has been following this blog on a daily basis has seen Evelina’s prodigious production of shirts for her husband and three sons. This particular project is soon to end. After one or two more mentions, Evelina will leave behind the cuffs, bosoms, and coarse and fine cloth of men’s shirtmaking and move into dressmaking for herself and her daughter, Susan. And when fair weather truly arrives, she will head for her flower garden. She will never completely stop sewing – there was always mending to be done – but she will relax her grip on needle and thread.

Today being Monday, Jane McHanna was busy with the weekly laundry, washing the family linens and clothes and hanging them out to dry. In the evening – after preparing tea for the family, no doubt – Jane left to go to a Mr. Bartlett’s. The call was probably a social one, but we don’t know whom she visited. Because so many of the servants in the village had recently immigrated from Ireland, they tended to know one another and often visited each other when they had time off. Meanwhile, Evelina and the young boarder, Orinthia Foss, headed next door to visit Sarah Lothrop Ames. It was a sociable evening for all the women in the Ames household.

March 20, 1851

Shirt bosoms

/51

March 20 This morning at 1/2 past seven commenced

a fine bleach shirt for one of my sons

and finished it about ten Oclock this evening

Made the whole but stiching the bosom

Mrs Witherell brought the 8th bosom that

she has stiched for me this forenoon and

sat with me two hours William left this

morning. Clothes dried and ironed. Cloudy & snowy

A[u]gustus here to dine

Today Old Oliver wrote in his daily journal:

“it is a snowing moderately this morning William left here this morni[n]g for New Jersey. It did not snow long but it was cloudy all day wind north west but it thawed some.”

William went back to the family-financed foundry in New Jersey for a final time before making the momentous change of striking west. He wanted to put distance between himself and the shovel operations in Easton. With his older brothers Oakes and Oliver Jr. managing the family business, his only chance at success was to find his own niche somewhere beyond their reach. At age 38, he was about to begin a very different life.

As William rode off, Evelina, naturally, was wielding needle and thread. After so many days of sewing shirts, she was adept enough to sew one entirely in a single day, beginning just after breakfast and finishing up right before bed. Having her kind sister-in-law Sarah Witherell to sew with for part of the day was a pleasant diversion. That Sarah contributed so many “bosoms” (detachable shirt fronts also known as dickies, false-fronts, and, in the 20th century, tux fronts) suggests that some of the shirts might have been destined for the men in her care, her father Old Oliver and her son, George Oliver Witherell.

March 14, 1851

March 14 Friday Quite early this morning sat down to

mending the stockings. Jane had mended them for two

or three weeks & they were very much out of order. At

ten Oclock comenced working on the new pattern shirt

& finished it before eight the bosom was ready to put in.

made the button holes & helped Orinthia finish a

a coarse shirt of Oakes Angier. Very pleasant

but bad traveling

Jane McHanna, the Irish servant who did the laundry and cooking for Evelina and Oakes Ames, was not much of a seamstress. She had recently been assigned the task of mending everyone’s stockings, or hose as they were also known, but evidently, Jane’s mending did not pass muster. Evelina had to see to the work herself. This explains why we’ve never heard of Jane sewing any of the shirts that Evelina had been working on for weeks.

Orinthia Foss was around to rely on, however. When not teaching her little classroom, she seemed to help Evelina in various ways, sewing and choring. Evelina must have been grateful not just for the assistance, but also for the company of another adult female in a home usually filled with the sounds and sights of four grown men and one little schoolgirl.

“Bad traveling” meant that the roads were in transition from winter to spring. Roads weren’t paved, of course, so by this time of the year they were rutted, rough and still patchy with snow or wet with puddles. Sleighs no longer worked, so wagons, carriages and carts had to bump and rock along the byways. Hard to say who had tougher going, the animals pulling or the passengers riding.

March 3, 1851

Men’s Work Shirt, mid-19th c.

March 3rd Monday Have given the furnace up to Ann to take

care of, and feel thankful to get rid of it Orinthia

assisted me in doing the work this morning

Have been working on a shirt for Oakes Angier

Jane went out this afternoon to Mrs Willis to get

a dress cut Mrs Witherell & Mrs S Ames spent

the evening with us. A letter from Helen She

is contented at her school Cloudy & windy to night

Augustus not here

Evelina solved the problem of keeping the coal furnace going by delegating the task to Ann Orel, the 24-year old Irish servant who worked for Sarah Witherell in “the other part of the house.” It being Monday, and thus laundry day, Jane McHanna was occupied in the kitchen boiling water and washing and rinsing clothes. Today’s load couldn’t have been too heavy, however, or Jane wouldn’t have been able to leave the house in the afternoon to see about getting a new outfit made.

Jane’s preoccupations left the usual morning chores to Evelina, who got a little boost of help from Orinthia Foss, the boarder and schoolteacher. Orinthia presumably soon departed for the schoolhouse, however, and Evelina had to carry on alone.

She turned to sewing, naturally, as she did on most days. Interesting that so far this year, except for a bonnet, she hadn’t sewed on much of anything for herself. Most of the sewing had been shirts and mending for the men, and aprons and chemises for her daughter. Evelina sewed almost constantly, but her production capacity was limited. Even with occasional help from others, she didn’t produce a surfeit of any article of clothing. Historians of this period – Jane Nylander, in particular – have suggested that people had much less clothing then than we might imagine:

“[V]ery few people had large numbers of any kind of garment. Women seldom owned more than four or five gowns and petticoats at a time; men usually owned a few coats and pairs of breeches or pantaloons, a few vests, and perhaps as many as half a dozen shirts.. Both owned a few pairs of stockings […] one or two pairs of shoes and boots; and a hat or bonnet […] Nobody changed all of their clothes daily.”*

If the average grown male owned an average of six shirts, and there were four men under Evelina’s roof, she was responsible for producing and/or maintaining approximately twenty-four shirts at any given time. No wonder she often sought assistance from Sarah Witherell and others. No wonder she worked at keeping them mended. No wonder the laundry load was so big on Mondays.

One lovely note today: Sarah and Oliver Ames Jr heard from their daughter, Helen Angier Ames, who seemed to be settling into life at boarding school just fine. If she was content, then her relatives were, too.

*Jane Nylander, Our Own Snug Fireside, 1993, p. 156

February 24, 1851

Feb 24th Monday. This morning Orinthia commenced a

private school at the school house had twenty

scholars. Was choring about house all the forenoon

This afternoon made over a valance for

Franks bed and did some mending.

Martin Guild was burried at two Oclock. None

of us attended the funeral Helen & Sarah Ames

called a few moments this evening. Heavy rain.

Looks like little Susie was back in school today, this time under the tutelage of Orinthia Foss, the new teacher. Not only would Susie see Miss Foss in the school room every day, but also at home for breakfast, dinner, and tea. During her tenure in Easton, Orinthia would take turns boarding with different families in town beginning with the Oakes Ameses. The exact location of the schoolhouse where she taught is undetermined, but it may have been located right in the heart of the village, at the Rockery.*

As usual, Evelina spent this busy Monday doing housework, or “choring,” as she called it, in the morning, or “forenoon,” while Jane McHanna labored with the weekly washing. What do you suppose was served for midday dinner on Mondays, when the women of the house were preoccupied with everything except cooking? Perhaps the family ate one of those mincemeat pies that had been prepared days in advance and kept very cold somewhere. Yankee housewives were known to keep some baked goods frozen for months, either by placing them on shelves in an ice house, or simply by storing them in unheated spaces not far from the kitchen. A risky practice, one might think, especially with the varied temperatures and rainy weather that has characterized this particular February.

Also as usual, Evelina turned in the afternoon to her mending and sewing. She refurbished a valance for Frank Morton’s bed. Although his brothers Oakes Angier and Oliver (3) shared a bedroom, Frank had a space, if not a room, to himself. A valance was an essential component of his bedstead, naturally offering some warmth and privacy that might otherwise be lacking.

* Information from Frank Mennino, Curator of the Easton Historical Society. Thank you, Frank.

February 16, 1851

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.

February 12, 1851

1851

Feb 12th This was the day for the sewing circle & what a crowded

house! Not one here except Mr Whitwell and our own

families Father Ames came in to tea & Sarah W

George, Emily & Oliver & wife Poldens boy was buried

to day Isabell & Ann went to the funeral & took tea

with Jane after they came back. I prepared enough

for 40 and think it is very provoking to have none

of the members It is a delightful day. Letter from Miss Foss

No one came to Evelina’s party.

“Very provoking,” indeed. Mortifying, even, that not a single member of the Sewing Circle attended today’s meeting, unless you count Reverend Whitwell. All the preparations, the baking, the cleaning, the spools of thread from Boston, all in vain.

Evelina took the rejection with a lacing of humor: “What a crowded house!” Although disappointed and upset, she must have been grateful for the way the Ames clan filed in to partake of the feast. From Old Oliver (who almost never came to tea) and all three Witherells to Oliver Jr and Sarah Lothrop Ames to her own children and husband, presumably, the family closed ranks around her and filled her parlor with warm bodies. Even the Irish servant girls on their way home from a wake partook of the spread of food – in the kitchen with Jane McHanna, of course.

So what happened? Evelina said the day was delightful but her father-in-law, a dependable chronicler of the daily weather, described “the going” that day as “rough + bad” even though the weather itself was “fair”. After days of terrible weather that had swung from rain to ice and back again, some of the absentee members probably couldn’t drive their wagons out of their own yards. Bad roads might account for some, if not all, of the truancy.

Nevertheless, the incident raises questions about Evelina’s popularity and social standing. She was married to one of the most important men in town, and she and Oakes enjoyed the friendship of many. Is it possible that some of the women in the Unitarian Circle resented her, or felt themselves superior to her? Where were the women she had grown up with? Were they jealous of her? Did she fail socially in comparison to her sisters-in-law, each whom had a more refined upbringing? Sarah Ames and Sarah Witherell never failed to attract a lively turnout for their Sewing Circles.

All these possibilities must have swirled in her mind. The true test would come when the Sewing Circle met again at Evelina’s, many months from this day, this awkward day that Evelina surely hoped to forget.

February 11, 1851

Feb 11th Tuesday This day has been a very busy one

with me, getting ready for the sewing Circle. Have

washed the front stairs & have been sweeping &

dusting. Have got things pretty much in order for

tomorrow It was very unpleasant this morning but this

afternoon it has cleared off very pleasant. Augustus

is helping Mr Peckham post his books. went home

with him to dinner & tea

Evelina seemed to feel better today and so went right to work. Stairs got washed, carpet was swept, table tops were dusted, knick knacks, books and periodicals put in order. The house would look spanky clean for the Sewing Circle tomorrow. Evelina herself was doing this work, while the servant Jane McHanna handled the regular chores: cooking the meals, washing the dishes and tidying up from the indoor laundry activity of yesterday. Jane and/or Evelina may have ironed today, too, although it’s doubtful that they could have completed the task. With all those men’s shirts to care for, ironing at the Ames house often lasted for several days.

In the office, or Counting House, next door, the company’s bookkeeper, John Peckham, was tending to business. Evelina’s nephew, Alson “Augustus” Gilmore, had started work there temporarily as Peckham’s assistant. Augustus is the nephew who has been looking for a place to rent for his growing family, all while beginning to set up a boot manufacturing company in the area. But meanwhile, nepotism being an acceptable, even laudable fact of life in a family-run business, Augustus was being kept afloat financially by work here and there for O. Ames and Sons. Augustus, a man of robust build, would prove to be a well-known figure around town, especially once he accepted the role of moderator at town meetings, a position he would hold twenty-four times in the next 32 years.

February 10, 1851

Feb 10th Monday Warm this morning but not pleasant Jane

put her clothes out but the wind commenced blowing quite

hard with some rain, so that the clothes had to be taken

in & were dried over the registers Cut Susan a Chemise

out of the width of 1 1/4 yd wide cloth and partly made it

Worked about house as usual on washing days in

the forenoon Wind blows quite hard this eve.

What a jungle of white linens the Ames house featured this Monday, with Jane McHanna having to drape dripping laundry around the heat registers. So much for Evelina’s cleaning the floors the other day. Miserable winter weather – snow, rain, ice, wind and rain again – was wreaking havoc with the domestic schedule.

One person in the Ames household celebrated her 12th birthday today: Sarah “Emily” Witherell. Emily was born in New Jersey where her parents had lived while her father, Nathaniel Witherell, Jr., worked with William Leonard Ames, her mother’s brother, at various Ames enterprises. Tragedy had struck in recent years, though, with the death of her father and the subsequent “drounding” of her two year old brother, Channing. Emily was stricken with loss at an early age.

With her mother, Sarah; older brother, George Oliver Witherell; and grandfather Old Oliver Ames, Emily now lived in North Easton, Massachusetts in “the other part of the house”. She probably still attended school, but she and Susie Ames were too far apart in age at this point to be close friends, although they would soon find themselves sharing piano lessons. Her cousin Oliver (3) found Emily to be outspoken and opinionated; she was, evidently, unafraid of speaking her mind at a time when candor in women was not prized.

Emily never married. After Old Oliver died in 1863, when she was about twenty-four, Emily and her mother moved into Boston, eventually taking up residence in Back Bay at the Hotel Hamilton and living off of distributions from investments managed by her male cousins. A spinster cousin, Amelia Hall Ames, the only daughter of William Leonard Ames, eventually moved in with Emily. These two cousins, in turn, may have undertaken to raise yet another cousin, Eleanor Ames, a granddaughter of William Leonard Ames. All that is in the future; on this day in 1851, we can hope that Emily had a special birthday despite the weather. She deserved a happy moment.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: