John H. Swain

September 7, 1851

 

Ames Home and Office, North Easton, Massachusetts ca. 1852 - 1862

Ames Home and Office, North Easton, Massachusetts
ca. 1852 – 1862

*

Sunday 7th  Have been to meeting all day  Mother

Mrs Stevens & I went to Mr Whitwells at

intermission Mrs Whitwell made a cup of tea

for us, brought mother home with us from meeting

at night  Mr Ames & I called at Mr Swains

Mr & Mrs Peckham are to leave tomorrow for

Taunton & the children & Mrs Metcalf  Thursday

The weather is very warm  Gave Mrs Stevens

some cuff pins it being her birth day.

Despite today’s heat, Evelina and her guest Mrs Stevens, and others of the Ames family, presumably, attended both morning and afternoon sessions of church. When the last service was over, they carried Evelina’s 79-year-old mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, to North Easton to stay for a few days.

An important transition was taking place this week at the shovel works.  John Peckham, former clerk, and his family were leaving for Taunton.  His place in the Counting Office was being taken by John Swain, whom Oakes and Evelina went to visit late in the day.  Swain and his wife, Ann Meader Swain, probably hailed from Nantucket.  They had connections in North Easton, but the move to a new abode was still a big change for the young couple. Oakes, with his wide-armed jocularity and Evelina with her easy, approachable manners, must have made the Swains feel welcome.  Over the years, their friendship would solidify.

Many decades later, when Ann Swain was the only one of the foursome still alive, she told historian and minister William Chaffin about the special relationship between John Swain and Oakes Ames:

“…[H]er husband had his regular salary supplemented by an addition from Mr. Ames. Mr. Swain did more or less work for him, besides the regular office work when he was head clerk. Mr. Ames was not very methodical and his transactions for the day in Boston, jotted down in a notebook rather hastily, would sometimes be in a tangle when he came to the office in the evening (office work in those days always going on in the evening), and he would say to Mr. Swain, ‘Come, John, you help me straighten out these things.’ In common with all the persons who served him Mr. Swain had a strong affection for Mr. Ames.”**

 

*Ames Homestead with Counting Office on far left.  Residence demolished in 1951.

**William Chaffin, Oakes Ames, private publication                                   

 

 

 

 

June 29, 1851

portrait of yoiung man yawning

 *

1851

June 29th Sunday  Went this forenoon to meeting

came home again did not feel like going

back again as it [was] very warm and I was very

sleepy and thought I might as well sleep at 

home as at church  After meeting at night

Mr Ames & I walked to Mr Peckhams to see

Mrs Swain.  She is a very pleasant woman I

should judge.

Small wonder that Evelina nearly fell asleep in church this morning. Reverend Whitwell’s sermons usually held her attention, but she was tired. She’d been busy all week, augmenting her usual chores and interests with a visit from her brother, John. On top of the emotional excitement of that rare reunion, she went to Boston yesterday, an excursion that typically delighted and exhausted her at the same time. She needed a nap.

Late in the day, evidently refreshed, Evelina and Oakes walked to the home of John and Susan Peckham. Mr. Peckham served as clerk for the Ames Shovel works, but was preparing to move away with his young family.  Replacing him, apparently, was the new clerk, John H. Swain. Evelina had already met Mr. Swain when he dined with them back in May. Tonight she met his wife, Ann, who made a favorable impression. The two families would become close over the years.

 * Photographer Unknown; portrait of a young man, yawning; ambrotype; ca. 1854; George Eastman House, Donald Weber Collection

 

May 6, 1851

sweet-peas

*

May 6th Tuesday  Orinthia & I went into the flower garden

and worked some time on the beds but the

ground was very wet as it rained last night.

Robinson has painted the bedroom up stairs

over the first time. This afternoon we planted

some sweet peas and have got the beds ready for

the seeds Had Mr Swain to dine with us

Orinthia finished her school Saturday […]

 

Mr. Robinson was back doing work for Evelina.  He was the handyman who, earlier in the year, had spilled varnish on the parlor carpet and taken too long to paint the mantels. Either he was an affable favorite of the family or his price was right, or both, for he was back at the Ames’s, this time painting an upstairs bedroom.  Jane McHanna must have been at work, too, keeping busy with meals and chores while she waited for the sun to dry yesterday’s wash. John Swain, the new clerk at O. Ames & Sons, came for dinner.

Despite the wet ground, Evelina and Orinthia, the young teacher who had become her friend, planted sweet peas and worked the ground for seeds yet to come. Sweet peas were a popular flower in the 19th century; John Keats praised them in a stanza of his 1817 poem “I stood tip-toe upon a little hill:”

Here are sweet-peas, on tip-toe for a flight:

With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white,

And taper fingers catching at all things,

To bind them all about with tiny rings.

The flowers were fragrant, delicate-looking but hardy, and slow to germinate.  Evelina and Orinthia probably placed them in a sunny spot in the beds. Did they need a trellis? Did the ladies wear gloves as they worked, or did they just dig into the dirt? Evelina, at least, probably wore some kind of protection, as she wasn’t at all fond of chaffing her hands.

 

 

*sweetpeas, landlund.com