Julianne Orr Harris

November 1, 1852

Rain

Monday Nov 1st  Went to Boston for Mrs Swain

to purchase mourning  Dined at Mr Orrs

Julia left there this morning  Miss Alger

came home with me  It is very bad walking

in Boston and my clothes covered with

mud rained all the forenoon  Mrs

S Ames & Helen here this evening

 

Even on a somber errand, Evelina never seemed to mind going into Boston. Still, given her recent lack of sleep and the rainy weather, she was kind to take on this sad business. Her goal was “to purchase mourning” clothes for her young friend, Ann Swain. Mrs. Swain had just lost her one-year old son and, as per the mores of the day, needed proper black apparel to mark her loss. If she followed convention, she would dress in mourning clothes for one whole year. She could ask advice from Sarah Witherell if she needed, for Sarah would still have been dressing in black or gray from the death of her own son back in the spring.

Different from her usual extended shopping trip into the city, Evelina went in and came out all in the same day, stopping only long enough to take supper with family friends, the Orrs. Surely the bad weather hurried her along on her errand. Evelina is emphatic about the misery wrought by the rain she endured while shopping, her outfit “covered with mud.”  Back home in Easton, her father-in-law Old Oliver was, as usual, less ruffled about the precipitation: “it raind some last night + has bin misty all day. wind north east.”* We should presume that more rain hit Boston than North Easton.

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

April 23, 1852

Boston, early 1850s, partial panoramic view

 Partial view of Boston and Cambridge from the Bunker Hill Monument, early 1850s*

1852

Friday April 23d  Went to Boston with Mrs S Ames

Called on Mrs Stevens did not stop with

her more than 15 minutes. Went to Mr Orrs

at night  Julia is there with her babe she

grows nicely and Julia is quite smart

I was about a great deal and was very

much fatigued but had a good […]

comfortable day

Evelina had not been out of Easton for more than two months.  Her last trip to Boston had been in the middle of February, when she’d traveled in with her son Oliver (3) and shopped for prints for the parlor.  That was before the fire at the shovel shop. With so much time having elapsed, she must have been eager to get to the city again.

She traveled into town with her sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames. They may have called together on family friend Mrs. Stevens, but they likely went their own ways afterwards. As usual, Evelina stayed with the family of Robert and Melinda Orr, where she visited their daughter Julianne Orr Harris (Mrs. Benjamin Winslow Harris) and her new baby, Mary, at whose birth Evelina had been present. Both mother and daughter seemed healthy.

Boston was probably bustling at this time of year, trees at the bud and the air cold but promising. The partial view of the city in the illustration above, made about this time, shows a city that was growing west and south. Between 1840 and 1850, its population had grown from 93,383 people to 136,881. By 1860, the count had reached 177,840. In this vista, railroads are visible, and a Back Bay sits ready to be completely filled..

The view was captured from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument, itself a recent feature of the landscape. Replacing an earlier monument also dedicated to the Revolutionary War battle in Charlestown, it was completed in 1842 and dedicated in 1843. Antiquarian Samuel Gardner Drake (and one of the founders of the New England Geneaological Society) published the panorama in his The History and Antiquities of Boston  in 1856 .

 

*Partial image of Panorama of Boston and Cambridge from top of Bunker Hill Monument, from The History and Antiquities of Boston, published in 1856 by Samuel Gardner Drake

March 26, 1852

imgres

 

1852.

Friday March 26  Mrs S Ames returned from Boston last

night, had unpleasant weather for two days.  She called

at Mr Orrs found them all well. Julia is there

yet with her little one  Mrs S Ames & Witherell

called on Mrs Elizabeth Lothrop and invited me

to go with them but I felt it more my duty to call

on Mrs Swain, did so, and was prevailed upon to 

spend the afternoon & evening.  She has weaned her

babe, has been quite unwell but is now better

Two young women closely connected to Evelina recently weaned their babies. Hannah Lincoln Gilmore, wife of Evelina’s nephew Augustus, had just weaned her seven month old son, Willie. Ann Swain, wife of the head clerk of the shovel works, John Swain, had done the same with her five month old boy, John.

Weaning was an anxious time for both babies and mothers, although in this circumstance it appears the babies came through the ordeal better than their mothers, at least at first. Both Hannah and Ann had been unwell during the process. Evelina, in her attentive way, had spent time with the two young mothers while they ailed. As a practiced mother who had nursed and weaned five babies of her own, she may have offered advice and provided significant comfort to the younger women.

In Boston on this day in 1852, far from the concerns of the nursery, a new house of worship, the Temple Ohabei Shalom, the first synagogue in Boston, was consecrated. Although the temple, built on Warren Street, is no longer standing, we know that was architecturally handsome and well-appointed. It could seat 400 worshipers and also offered an area for a Hebrew School, a meeting room, and a bath, known as a mikveh.* A temple by the same names exists today on Beacon Street in Brookline.

Although Easton now has a synagogue, the Temple Chayai Shalom, it did not have one, nor did it have a visible Jewish community, in 1852.

 

* Jim Vrabel, When in Boston, Boston, 2004, p. 160

February 10, 1852

 

thetouc2

Physician-assisted childbirth, mid-19th century

Feb 10th, Tuesday

1852  Went out shopping about 11 Oclock staid untill

that time with Mrs Harris who was confined with

a daughter born about two Oclock.  looked at engraving

again today purchased Allhalloween  Oliver returned 

home to night but I did not get through with my

shopping and concluded to stop another night

Mr Harris came in the cars this afternoon heard of her

sickness just in time to take them  Oliver Jr called at Mr Orrs

While shopping for art in Boston with her son Oliver (3), Evelina had another memorable day. Per usual, she stayed with the Robert Orr family in the city. While there, one of the Orr daughters, Julianne Orr Harris, went into labor and gave birth to a girl.  Evelina stayed with Julianne for a time, which would have been normal in the older tradition of a “circle of women” being present at childbirth. Evelina’s timetable is a bit confusing, but it sounds as though she was there for much of the labor – or “sickness” –  if not at the actual delivery.

It’s likely that a male doctor presided at the birth, because by this period, especially in urban areas, physician-assisted births had become the rule rather than the exception. Midwives were phased out, although they never entirely disappeared. One result of this change was that strict propriety in the birthing room prevailed over medical accuracy, at least in the 19th century. Modern historian Jack Larkin notes:

“Embarrassment and constraint became part of the birth process; physicians were greatly hindered, as midwives had never been, by firmly established canons of female modesty. Men could not look directly at their patients’ genitals, but had to examine them only by touch while they remained fully clothed.Often deeply uncomfortable with a bedchamber full of women looking on – sometimes critically – doctors tried to persuade expectant mothers to clear them out of the birthing room.”

Julianne’s husband, Benjamin Winslow Harris, was away when his wife went into labor, but got a message, somehow, and just made the train home. He would not have participated in the birth itself, but he may have had a hand in the naming of his first child: Mary Harris, after his own mother.

 

*Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life,New York, 1988, p.97.

 

July 14, 1851

Knives

1851

July 14 Monday  Mr Norris left in the stage this

morning  Mr & Mrs Harris & Mrs Norris for

Bridgewater.  Jane has not done her washing as she

usually does but we have put the house in order

Scoured all the knives &c &c.  Have passed most 

of the afternoon in the other part of the house

the whole family took tea there

The Harrises and Norrises left this morning, releasing Evelina from her hostessing obligations. The house was in disarray; probably, one of the couples slept in a bed in the parlour, the other stayed who-knows-where.  Furniture had to be put back, linens stripped and so on.  Jane McHanna had so much to do in the aftermath of the houseguests that she couldn’t do the Monday washing.  That was unheard of.

Jane and Evelina picked up in the kitchen, too.  One of them scoured the knives. In 1851, knives were made of mild steel, typically high in iron. Stainless steel, which has an alloy of low iron and high chromium, had not yet been developed, and wouldn’t appear until the turn of the 20th century. Knives in the 19th century corroded easily and needed to be cleaned periodically, often by being rubbed with fine sand.  Evelina or Jane might have sharpened them, too.

In the afternoon, Evelina and her whole family had tea at her father-in-law’s, served by her sister-in-law Sarah Witherell.  After a weekend of catering to houseguests, being served tea must have been a pleasure.

 

 

July 12 1851

54-02

*

July 12 Saturday  Have been very much engaged to day

in putting my house in order & have been to work

on the cushion to the lounge, and put the cover

on to the arm.  called in Olivers awhile.  Mrs

H Ames and Mrs Mitchell spent the day there

Mr Norris came in the stage to night & Mr & Mrs

Harris Mrs Norris from Bridgewater, Miss Foss

came with Oakes A who had been that way on an errand

Company! From Boston by way of Bridgewater came the Orr daughters and their husbands. Melinda Orr Norris with her husband Caleb, who had visited Easton just the other day, and Julianne Orr Harris and her husband, Benjamin Winslow Harris, arrived for an overnight stay with the Ameses.  Evelina spent much of the day “very much engaged” in getting the house ready for the two young couples, although she did manage to slip next door to sit with her sisters-in-law. The whole Ames property was full to the rafters.

Everyone had tasks to do today, which wasn’t unusual in that hard-working family. Old Oliver and a crew were outdoors:

“it was cloudy half the fore noon but the afternoon was pritty fair wind north part of the time + south west a part we mowd the high land back of the Factory pond and that on this side of the old pair trees. to day”  Was this mowing a forerunner of haying season?

* Pear tree