Jane McHanna

December 20, 1851

unnamed Dec 20 Saturday  Have been very busy all day working

on different articles  Mended some clothes

for Frank, the stockings and mended the

places that were cut & bound the end of

some pieces of carpeting Jane finished the 

second robin that she has made for Frank

Mr Ames brought home some marble rubber

and lining & ribbon for Susans bonnet   ”

 

[T]his was a fair day and not verry cold” was the weather report from Old Oliver Ames. It was a normal Saturday at the Ames’s house in all respects. Evelina mended clothes, darned socks and repaired some carpeting.  Jane McHanna sewed, too, having recovered from an acute indisposition caused by coal the day before. She finished a “robin” (which one reader suggests was a kind of tough work pants) for Frank Morton Ames, Evelina’s youngest son.

Oakes Ames went into Boston, as usual, for a weekly check-in with shovel customers, after which he went shopping for his wife. From a list Evelina must have given him, he made his way along Washington Street and around Faneiul Hall, probably knowing just which shop to go to for such-and-such ribbon or a well-priced bolt of flannel. He returned to North Easton laden with parcels wrapped in paper and tied with string.

December 19, 1851

Coal

Dec 19th Friday  After breakfast went to making

my citron made quite a long job of it nearly two before it

was all done had about 14 or 15 lbs  The coal

affected Jane so much that she nearly fainted 

and had to go to bed & I had to get dinner

After I got through with the citron I put

the things back into the store room from the

shed chamber & put it in order  Spent eve at Olivers

Coal was the fuel of choice at the Ames compound, but it had some negative aspects (beyond its environmental impact, a more modern concern.) Dust and smoke from burning coal was noxious, its particulates containing toxins like lead, mercury and arsenic.  Yet much of America was turning to coal for fuel to support the growth of manufacturing and the expanding rail traffic, and to replace the use of wood in homes.

While working in the kitchen making candied citron, Jane McHanna was overcome by the coal smoke and smell.  She went to bed to recover, leaving Evelina at the stove to finish up and make dinner. No doubt Evelina was concerned for the health of her servant, but no doubt she was somewhat peeved to be doing Jane’s job again.

Citron, meanwhile, was the fruit of choice for fruitcake.  Not as familiar to us nowadays as it was in 1850, it was cooked and candied and used for special baking.  Both Evelina and Jane would have known how to cook it down.

 

December 18, 1851

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A Delaine Sheep

Dec 18 Thursday  Finished the back of Susans hood

and finished the blue and orange deLaine

for self that Julia cut a new waist for last spring

Mary left this morning said she was going

to Bridgewater for her clothes   It is bitter cold and 

I fear she will suffer  Jane has finished two

prs of cotton flannel drawers for me that she

has been sewing on since she was sick

Another “fair cold day;”* not an ideal time for the servant, Mary, to travel from North Easton to her home in Bridgewater.  Whether she rode or walked, she must have been quite exposed and have become sick, for she didn’t return to the Ames household for the rest of the winter. She only reappears in Evelina’s diary the next July, working by that time for Alson and Henrietta Gilmore at their farm.  What prompted her departure?  Was she homesick for family in Bridgewater, or tired of working at the Ames’s house?

Sewing was today’s occupation of choice for Evelina and her remaining servant, Jane McHanna. Evelina picked up an unfinished project from the previous spring, one that she had nearly finished with help from local dressmaker, Julia Mahoney.  It was a “blue and orange deLaine,” meaning that it was a print or plaid, fine-weave, challis-like wool dress, one that would be of service in this cold weather. The wool itself came from a type of Merino sheep known as a Delaine (as in, “of wool” in French.) Jane, meanwhile, sewed some flannel underclothes for Evelina, who would be warmly dressed once these articles were finished.

Next door, in the other part of the house, a man named Holman Johnson, probably visiting on shovel business, stayed the night.

*Oliver Ames Journal, Stonehill College Archives, Arnold Tofias Collection

 

December 17, 1851

Sleigh

Dec 17th  Wednesday.  Mary went to ironing this

morning and Jane did the housework and I have been

knitting on Susans hood have got the front done and 

commenced the back  Abby spent the afternoon

& Malvina came in past eight  Jane ironed 7

shirts this afternoon  Very cold weather

Old Oliver Ames didn’t always agree with his senior daughter-in-law, but on this day he and she shared the same opinion about the temperature outside. “[T]he coldest day we have had this winter,” he wrote in his journal. Not surprising that Evelina and her servants stayed inside and focused on their indoor domestic responsibilities. All three women seemed to have recovered from their recent colds and illness and they probably wanted to keep it that way.

Some people went outside, though.  Evelina’s nieces, Abby and Malvina Torrey, spent part of their day with her.  They must have walked over from the village – a short walk, fortunately, in the windy, freezing sunshine.  Other Eastonians who were out and about would have moved around best in their sleighs, as a buildup of snow had hardened into a smooth, slick surface on the roadways.  Old Oliver himself may have gotten around that way.  He noted that “light slays run pritty well now.”

 

December 15, 1851

Hood

Monday Dec 15  The girls have both been washing to 

day but it was so windy they could not put their clothes

out  Jane has sewed this afternoon the bags for the

sausages  I knit on Susans hood this morning

and this afternoon commenced knitting on a little

hood for the fair  Mrs Witherell & Ames have been

in awhile and are to work for it

While her servants Jane and Mary struggled with the Monday laundry, Evelina began to knit. Her nephew, Augustus Gilmore, had fetched some yarn – or worsted, as she called it – for her on Saturday while in Boston, and she was finally able to get to it today.

Evelina “knit on” two hoods, one for her daughter Susan and another for a church fair that was coming up. A hood might take a few different shapes, from a fitted piece that covered the top, sides and back of one’s head to one that covered the top and sides only, as in the period illustration above. The one above – which isn’t knitted, but sewn – is really just a variation of a bonnet.

Jane McHanna, too, worked with a needle today once the washing was done. She sewed some cloth bags for the pounds and pounds of sausage that had been produced on Saturday.  Sausage was usually forced into casings made from pig intestines, and this may have been the case with the pork that Evelina and Sarah Witherell produced.  But it may be that an additional cloth covering was desirable for storage or identification.  Hard to know.  Any thoughts from readers who have made their own sausages?

 

December 14, 1851

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Benjamin Seaver

Mayor of Boston, 1852 – 1854

Sunday 14 Dec  Have not been to meeting to day on

account of my cough.  Jane went to meeting 

at eight Oclock got breakfast before she went.

I have been writing and reading

Mr Swain & wife have spent the evening here

Mr Swains brother has been there a week or two

I have not seen him  The babe grows very 

fast and is a great wonder

In an unusual occurrence for a Sunday in New England in the 19th century, an election – or an announcement of the results of an election – was held on this day.  A new mayor, Benjamin Seaver, was elected to govern the City of Boston, a post he would hold through 1853. He was a Whig, one of that dying breed whose successful election surely gave the Ames men a lonely branch to cling to in the swirling flood of new political parties.

According to modern historian Jim Vrabel, Seaver won with 3,300 votes and defeated Dr. Jerome Smith and Adam Thaxter. (Only men voted in the election, of course.) Seaver was noteworthy for his interest in erecting a public library for the city. During his administration, a committee would be formed, plans (some already in the works) developed, a first librarian hired, and private funding obtained for the project.

At the same time that Seaver came in, “the entire Board of Aldermen” were voted out, “reportedly for refusing Daniel Webster” – a hometown favorite – ” use of Faneuil Hall because an abolitionist group had earlier been denied its use.”* Webster had advocated for passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, something for which abolitionists never forgave him. Just goes to show that the issue of slavery informed all levels of political intercourse in this decade before the Civil War.

On the home front, besotted new parents Ann and John Swain spent the evening with Evelina and Oakes, talking about their son.  Evelina seemed smitten, too, writing that the baby boy was “a great wonder.” Like the new mayor and the Board of Aldermen, however, she and that baby’s parents couldn’t know what sorrow lay ahead.

 

* Jim Vrabel, When in Boston, Boston, p. 157

December 13, 1851

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Sat Dec 13th  Have tried my lard cleaned hogs head

and fat and the meat ready choped & seasoned 

for filling  Have been to work all day on them

together with Jane & Mary.  Have 78 lbs meat

Mr Ames & Augustus have been to Boston.

Augustus got me some worsteds for hood

Frank & Oakes chopped my meat & Sarahs, she

had 28 lbs.

Sarah Witherell and Evelina Ames, sisters-in-law bent on taking care of some pork fresh from the slaughter of a few Ames hogs, had 106 pounds of pork between them to be turned into sausage. In addition to the capable hands of servants Jane McHanna and Mary, they had help from Evelina’s sons Oakes Angier and Frank Morton, who chopped the meat, and probably the fat, too,  into manageable chunks. Together with other ingredients – see below – the meat was forced into a grinder like the one pictured above.

Most likely, the women didn’t need to follow a recipe to make the sausage, having made it countless times before.  But if they did, they could have turned to Sarah Josepha Hale’s instructions in The Good Housekeeper.  They would have had to multiply the recipe times thirty or so:

“TO MAKE SAUSAGE MEAT. — Chop two pounds of lean with one of fat pork very fine – mix with this meat five teaspoonfuls of sale, severn of powdered sage, two of black pepper, and one of cloves.  You can add a little rosemary, if you like it”*

And sausage wasn’t the only product from the pork that Evelina, Sarah, Jane and Mary worked on.  They made lard and dressed a hog’s head. It was a most productive day in the Ames kitchen.

*Sarah Josepha Hale, The Good Housekeeper, Boston, 1841

December 8, 1851

 

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Dec 8th Monday.  Another unpleasant windy day

and we could not put our clothes out

Alson came after Mother this afternoon

and it has cleared off quite pleasant.  he is

better but is not able to work yet.  I have been

cutting out some cotton flannel for Jane to work on

last week she worked for herself.  It is three

weeks since she has been able to work much

Another Monday morning with weather too “unpleasant” to hang the wash out to dry. It rained in the morning, and “took the snow all of[f]” according to Old Oliver. The newest servant, Mary, possibly with the help of the still-recovering Jane McHanna, must have resorted to hanging wet articles over various registers around the house to dry.

Besides the weather being crummy, Evelina’s husband, Oakes, was still away; her brother Alson, though improved, couldn’t yet work his farm; her servant, Jane McHanna, hadn’t fully recovered from an illness of three weeks running and she, herself, was coming down with a cold. Evelina’s week was off to a poor start; she must have been anxious by this time to have her husband return home. On the bright side – perhaps – she saw her mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, return to the family farm, where the elderly woman was always the most comfortable.

The weather “cleared off” in the afternoon, bringing back the sunshine. Did the full moon that night cheer Evelina up with its wintry light or keep her awake worrying about various domestic aggravations?

 

 

December 2, 1851

 FillmorePresident Millard Fillmore

Dec 2d  Tuesday.  It has been cold to day but not near as

cold at yesterday or as windy  Mary has put

her clothes out.  Jane has ironed some shirts

for Mr Ames & I have ironed some collars

cuff & handkerchiefs &c for self  Mother & self

have passed the afternoon at Mr Whitwells

Mr & Mrs John R Howard were there.  Had

a pleasant visit

While the servant Mary – whose last name we never learn – put out most of yesterday’s wet laundry to dry, Jane McHanna rose from bed to iron some of Oakes Ames’s shirts.She had spent part of yesterday placing them in a tub of starch. Evelina took to ironing as well, looking after her own collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs. Ironing, which required a small fleet of flatirons being kept warm on a hot stove, was a welcome chore on a cold day. We don’t often read of Evelina doing the ironing herself.

In Washington, D. C., President Millard Fillmore’s State of the Union address was delivered in writing to Congress.  His speech was quite literal, full of specific details about foreign policy, exports, mining, gold in California, the acquisition of Texas and the surveying and improvements necessary for the territories and frontier.  He lauded the importance of agriculture, noting that “four fifths of our active population are employed in the cultivation of the soil,” and argued for a Bureau of Agriculture.

Fillmore also could not help but write of the growing differences between North and South and the 1850 legislation that was designed to address various aspects of the problem of slavery. He began his address optimistically, writing “the agitation which for a time threatened to disturb the fraternal relations which make us one people is fast subsiding…” but later admitted “that it is not to be disguised that a spirit exists, and has been actively at work, to rend asunder this Union which is our cherished inheritance from our Revolutionary fathers.”

In closing, Fillmore urged patience and reconciliation.  He counseled his countrymen to honor the Compromise of 1850.  “Wide differences and jarring opinions can only be reconciled by yielding something on both sides,” he cautioned.

December 1, 1851

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*

Dec 1st Monday.  Oliver left again this morning

for Brown University.  Jane was able to do the 

housework this morning & Mary has washed

I have been sewing with Mother  Gave the

furnace up to Ann this morning  It has been 

so windy that we could not dry our clothes

Jane has starched the fine clothes to have

them ready to Iron tomorrow  Cold room all day

 

It’s not surprising that Evelina got Sarah Witherell’s servant, young Ann Orel, to start the coal furnace this morning, for it was a chore she disliked and the weather was so cold that there was no fooling around with getting heat into the house.  Old Oliver reported that “this was a fair day wind verry high from the north west + cold – a verry disagreeable day to be out in – there was an anchor frost this morning”

Anchor frost is a term for “a frost which causes ice to form along the bed of a running stream […] An anchor–frost can only occur when the temperature of the running water and the bed over which it flows is below freezing point. When this is the case, the rapidity of the stream is sometimes sufficient to prevent the swifter upper current congealing, while the lower current, which moves more slowly on account of the friction, becomes frozen to the bed.” *  Old Oliver knew all about running water and was probably not happy to see anchor ice forming in the Queset.

*Image of anchor ice, courtesy of The Aspen Times

** Arthur Benoni Evans, Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs, Volume 11, English Dialect Society, 1881.