Oliver Ames Jr | evelinaames

April 10, 1852

1852

April 10th Saturday Worked in the chambers all the forenoon

Mr Colwell came after Orinthia she will commence her school Monday.

Have been painting some spots in the dining room Made a call in

Olivers Julia is at work there for Helen. I have engaged her the

last of the week. Heard that Mrs Brett is dangerously sick

Eveline Brett, wife of George Brett, a bootmaker, was a twenty-year-old who had recently given birth. The baby had survived – at least so far – but she herself was “dangerously sick.” She likely had come down with childbed fever.

Childbed fever, known medically as puerperal fever, is a postpartum, streptococcal infection of the mother’s reproductive tract. The fever was often fatal. For much of the 19th century, it was usually, if inadvertently, caused by attending doctors. At the time, doctors had no knowledge of germs and didn’t believe in hand washing. The prevailing attitude, as expressed by one Philadelphia obstetrician, Dr. Charles Meigs, was “Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen’s hands are clean.”*

It took a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis to realize that women with home births had fewer cases of the fever than those women who gave birth in maternity wards. He determined “that washing hands with an antiseptic solution before a delivery reduced childbed fever fatalities by 90%.“* Publication of his findings was not well received by the medical community, but he was right.

* Puerperal infections Wikipedia, accessed March 24, 2015

April 5, 1852

1852

April 5th Monday Went into the garden this morning and

found my tulips were coming up through the coal

scraped it off and set out a few that I got in

Olivers garden. Went with Orinthia to Edwin

Manlys garden about three Oclock. he had gone

to Mr Clapps. We rode there and met him on

the way stoped awhile and had a chat on plants

in general The school commenced this morning

by Mr Brown & C Clark

Tulips! How welcome was the sight of the curl of green shoots “coming up through the coal.”

Forget the laundry. Never mind the sweeping and dusting. Someone else could do the breakfast dishes. Without so much as a glance at her sewing workbox or the pile of mending, Evelina was in her garden.

She scraped the coal covering away and “set out a few” more plants. After midday dinner, she and Orinthia headed to Edwin Manley’s nursery north of the village only to find that Mr. Manley had himself headed out to look at plants at the home of Lucius Clapp in Stoughton. The two women rode on and finally came across Mr. Manly en route. With carriage and on horseback, the three avid gardeners paused in the roadway and “had a chat about plants.” Spring had truly begun.

March 28, 1852

Ames Shovel Handle Factory, Oakland, Maine*

March 28 Sunday Went to church this morning and

at noon called at Mrs Wm Reeds with Henrietta

Hannah came at noon but was faint and

I carried her home and got back to church about

the time the services were over After went down

to the new shops with Mrs W, S Ames Augusta Orinthia

found Mr. Ames, Oliver & Cyrus L there returned by Edwins

and all called there Mr Ames & self went to Augustus’ this evening

The new shops were up, and various family members rode by to see them after church. No more “dismal ruin”, as reported by Evelina only three weeks earlier. Risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the old shops, the shovel works were about to begin operations in new, if temporary, quarters.

It was a large group that gathered to consider the new buildings. Evelina, who had missed the afternoon service in attending to her ailing niece, Hannah Lincoln Gilmore, nonetheless rode back from church to the site. Accompanying her were her sisters-in-law, Sarah Witherell and Sarah Ames; another niece, Augusta Pool Gilmore; and sometime boarder and frequent companion, Orinthia Foss. At the site, by accident or design, they found Oakes Ames and his brother, Oliver Ames Jr., and Cyrus Lothrop, a brother of Sarah Lothrop Ames who often resided with his sister. The group must have marveled at the swift reincarnation of the shovel works.

Perhaps a celebratory spirit inspired the crowd to assemble en masse at the nearby home of newlyweds Augusta and Edwin Gilmore.

*Image of Ames Shovel Handle Factory, Oakland, Maine courtesy of the Oakland Maine Area Historical Society. Included to illustrate what the rebuilt shovel factory could have resembled.

March 23, 1852

Gunter’s Chain**

March 23

1852 Tuesday. Alson and wife dined here and spent

the afternoon at Edwins He has been running

out lines for Edwin & Melvin Randall Orinthia

went home with them. Was at tea in Edwins

& this evening with Augusta at Augustus’

Augustus has gone to New York. Susan is staying

there to night went just after dinner. Oliver & wife

went to Boston this morning Rained untill early night.

The Gilmore clan was moving around today. Evelina’s nephew, Alson “Augustus” Gilmore, was headed for New York City on business for his boot company or the Ames shovels, or both. Evelina’s brother (and Augustus’s father), Alson Gilmore, and his wife, Henrietta Williams Gilmore, had midday dinner at the Ames house. Alson was in the village helping another son, Edwin Williams Gilmore, and an Easton man, Melvin Randall, run out lines.

The phrase “running out lines” is open to interpretation (ice fishing is a possibility!), but the most likely meaning is that ground was being measured, perhaps for the new factory buildings soon to be built. A running measure is the cumulative distance in a straight line from a fixed point. The standard instrument used to get a running measure, at least in the 18th and 19th centuries, was a Gunter’s chain. It was used in conjunction with a compass and a transit (for establishing straight lines) to measure ground.

Invented by an English clergyman and mathematician, Edmund Gunter, around 1620, the Gunter’s chain “played a primary role in mapping out America.”** The Army Corps of Engineers would have owned such chains in bulk. The chain’s 100 lines measure 4 poles, or 66 feet, or 22 yards, depending on how you care to count it. Eighty chains equal one mile.

The Gunter’s chain, however, helpful as it was, was apt to be hand-made and thus subject to variation. It was eventually replaced by the more accurate surveyor’s tape.

By the way, for those readers who follow the game (or watch Downton Abbey), the length of a cricket pitch is exactly one chain.

*Thank you, Frank Mennino, for your assistance on today’s blog.

**Image from Colonial Williamsburg, courtesy of http://www.history.org

March 10, 1852

1852

March 10th Wednesday Early part of the day

was sewing on a waist or rather cutting

it out and getting it to fit. Augusta

came in this afternoon but as Amelia

& self were invited into Olivers she went

with us and Edwin. Mr Ames came to tea

Amelia trimmed some pocket handkerchiefs

for me that Mrs Ames got in New York

The rebuilding of the shovels shops was moving along well. They “put the roof on the stone shop to day,”* according to Old Oliver, who watched each day’s progress carefully. It had been a full week since fire had destroyed most of the factory buildings. The response and reconstruction had been immediate!

Amelia Gilmore, the widow of Evelina’s younger brother, Joshua Gilmore, Jr., was visiting for several days. She undertook the hemming of some handkerchiefs – essential components of a lady’s outfit – that Almira Ames had brought Evelina from New York City. The purpose of a handkerchief, a personal item dating back to antiquity, was primarily hygenic, used to wipe one’s nose or brow and cover one’s cough. In a time of contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, cloth handkerchiefs were essential. Their ubiquity necessitated their incorporation into the fashion profile.

Late in the day, the two went next door to Oliver Jr.’s and Sarah Lothrop Ames’ home for tea. Oakes Ames went, too, and the newlyweds, Augusta and Edwin Gilmore, tagged along.

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

March 4, 1852

Replacement buildings on a section of the Ames shovel complex

1852

March 4 Thursday Scott & Holbrook are setting glass at

the shop to day They have the front entry partly

painted I carried my work into Edwins this

forenoon mended O Angiers shop coat This afternoon

have been to Mr Torreys with Augustus & Lavinia

Called a few moments on Hannah She has a

sore mouth and is weaning her child

Evelina addresses her day calmly, as always keeping her distance from the goings-on at O. Ames & Sons. Most other residents of North Easton were still reeling, no doubt, from the huge fire that had burned down a majority of shovel factory buildings over the night of March 2. The sun was shining and the wind was out of the north west, pushing around remnant smoke still rising from the ruins of the complex of wooden buildings. Shovel shop employees had no regular job to go to and the owners had some serious decisions to make, fast.

Clean-up from the huge fire was underway, probably by the labor of the very men whose factory jobs had been temporarily eliminated. The men who had been painting and papering at the Ames’s house, for instance, were co-opted to set glass at the shop, suggesting that new panes of glass – the originals probably having been blown out by the fire – were going into the windows of the one or two buildings that had survived.

As town historian Ed Hands points out, “the Ames family and the neighborhood rebounded quickly.”* Old Oliver and his sons Oakes and Oliver Ames Jr. made a two-fold decision. The first was to create temporary structures to house the manufacturing so that shovel making could resume as quickly as possible. The second was to create “new, permanent stone shops,”* sturdy, nonflammable structures that could outwit any new fire.

There was insurance money to cover at least some of the rebuilding. Sources differ on the amount of damage that the fire inflicted, but suggest it was between $30,000 and $40,000. The amount of insurance coverage is also uncertain. Old Oliver “states that there was $3,000 worth of insurance on the buildings”** but, according to industrial historian Greg Galer, it’s likely that the Ameses had increased insurance coverage on the factory back in November, 1851. Whatever the actual dollar cost was, “[t]he company bounced back quickly from the devastation, and seemingly without significant financial trauma.”**

*Edmund C. Hands, Easton’s Neighborhoods, Easton, 1995, p. 163

** Gregory Galer, Forging Ahead, MIT, 1989, p. 249

February 27, 1852

Feb 27

1852 Friday this morning I invited Mrs Lothrop here

but she went to Mrs Jason Howards to spend the day

came here this evening Mrs S Ames & Fred dined

here Mrs & Mr Horace Pool Mrs W Williams Abby

Edwin & wife Oliver & wife & Fred & Mrs Witherell

were here to tea All came unexpectedly. Had

a very pleasant visit from them.

Many folks came to call today. Sarah Ames Lothrop and her son, Frederick Lothrop Ames, joined the Ameses for midday dinner. (Although Oliver (3) had returned to Brown, Fred hadn’t yet gone back to Harvard.) A real crowd arrived “unexpectedly” for tea. Sarah and Fred returned, bringing Oliver Ames Jr. with them. Sarah Ames Witherell came in from the other part of the house, resulting in all three sisters-in-law being together. Newlyweds Edwin and Augusta Gilmore walked over from their nearby home, and old Mrs. Gilmore – Evelina’s mother – was already on the premises. The family gathered.

From farther away came Horace and Abby Avery Pool, uncle and aunt to the bride, Augusta. A Mrs. W. Williams arrived, as did Abby Torrey, Evelina’s niece. Abby’s head must have been full of the previous evening’s entertainment, that of Willard Lothrop’s visit and trance. It’s likely that some of this evening’s conversation turned on spiritualism. One wonders what Oakes and Oliver Jr. thought of the topic.

Perhaps Evelina served some ginger snaps or currant cake from Tuesday’s baking. The tea itself could have been one of any number of types. Lydia Maria Child published her opinion on the subject: “Young Hyson is supposed to be a more profitable tea than Hysons; but though the quantity to a pound is greater, it has not so much strength. In point of economy, therefore, there is not much difference between them. Hyson tea and Souchong mixed together, half and half, is a pleasant beverage, and is more healthy than green tea alone. Be sure that water boils before it is poured upon tea A tea-spoonful to each person, and one extra thrown in, is a good rule. Steep ten or fifteen minutes.”*

*Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife, 1846

February 13, 1852

1852

Feb 13th Friday Have been to work on Olivers shirt

that I was intending to finish last week and have not

got it done yet have scarcely got over my

Boston jaunt. Carried my sewing into the other

half of the house awhile Brother Oliver returned

from Boston to night & says the large machine

shop just back of Mr Orrs was burned last night

Mrs Witherell here about two hours this evening

A serious fire happened in Boston, as Oliver Ames Jr. reported when he got home. The family probably read about it in the city newspapers, including The Boston Atlas:

“FIRE. – Firemen Injured. – About 10 o’clock last night a fire was discovered in the upper part of a five story brick building, in the rear of No. 24 Kingston street. The fire broke out upon the upper floor, used for chair painting. The flames spread rapidly, and in a few minutes the roof fell in, pressing portions of the walls over the sides, the falling bricks injuring five firemen who were upon ladders directing the streams upon the fire, two of them very badly indeed. The third story was improved by the “Boston Laundry,” and was burnt out. The second story, occupied as Fox’s machine shop, and the first by Horace Jenkins, mason, were thoroughly drenched with water. The building, a sham built concern, is owned by Willard Sears. The wind was quite high and the weather freezing cold at the time, and the firemen deserve great credit for their well directed and energetic efforts in subduing the devouring elements, – and it is with pain and regret that we have to record injury to so many of their number: – John Smith, of Hydrant No. 2, very severely in the back and shoulders; Christian Karcher, Engine C. No. 1, badly bruised; Abraham Ross and James McCullis, of Hydrant Co. No. 3, bruised. Charles Ricker, of same company, received a severe injury in the back. It was reported that Smith’s and Ricker’s injuries are of a very serious nature. They were all carried into houses nearby, and medical aid procured.”

Then as now, fire was deadly serious. John Smith died of his injuries three days later, Boston’s first modern fireman to suffer a Line of Duty Death.**

*The Boston Atlas, February 12, 1852

**http://www.bostonfirehistory.org, accessed Feb. 11, 2015

January 27, 1852

1852

Jan 27 Tuesday. Mrs S Ames & Frederick were to dinner had a roast

goose. This afternoon Mr & Mrs Whitwell, Mr & Mrs

John Howard & Miss Jarvis Mrs Witherell Augustus

& Hannah came this evening Frederick went after the

ladies. Oliver & George carried them all home this

evening. Baked some tarts in the other house stove

Have sewed but very little Mr Wm Brown was also here.

Quite a sociable day for the Ameses, full of company. Midday dinner was attended by Sarah Lothrop Ames and her son Frederick. (The absence of Oliver Jr. and Helen Angier Ames suggests that the former might have been away on business while the latter had returned to school.) Fred, like Oliver (3), was home from the Ivy League; their conversation at the dinner table probably provided some fresh subject matter. Perhaps they entertained family members with a modified description of life on campus.

Evelina served a roast goose (that Jane McHanna had cooked), a dish that normally denoted a special occasion such as Christmas or New Year’s. Were they serving it in anticipation of Oliver (3)’s 21st birthday, or was it just a whim? Either way, serving roast goose on an odd weekday signified wealth behind the larder.

Sarah Josepha Hale offered a recipe for roast goose in her popular household guide, The Good Housekeeper, suggesting that it be stuffed and roasted on a spit over a “brisk” fire for at least two hours. Otherwise, she had a qualified opinion of the dish:

“Geese seem to bear the same relationship to poultry that pork does to the flesh of other domestic quadrupeds; that is, the flesh of goose is not suitable for, or agreeable to, the very delicate in constitution. One reason doubtless is, that it is the fashion to bring it to table very rare done; a detestable mode!”*

Mrs. Hale would likely have approved of the baked tarts, however, that Evelina served for tea later in the day to the Whitwells and others. It’s a happy note that Sarah Witherell ventured over at the very end of the day; she must have been feeling better after the extraction of her teeth some days back. She was comfortable enough to let Evelina’s nephew Augustus and his wife Hannah see her face, which had been swollen for days.

*Sarah Josepha Hale, The Housekeeper’s Guide, 1841, p. 52

January 24, 1852

1852

Jan 24th Saturday Worked all the forenoon mending

Olivers overcoat & pants. Have finished my worsted

hood in Olivers this afternoon. Julia Pool

Augusta & Edwin were there to tea. Mr Ames

has been to Boston & has brought home Oliver a

gold watch Fred & Oliver have fine time and

are wide awake They sleep together. Fred came

in here tonight.

Evelina must have written this entry at night, perhaps in her bedroom where she could hear her son Oliver (3) and nephew Fred Ames conversing and laughing elsewhere in the house. The first cousins, college men both, enjoyed one another’s company and were spending the night together. Up to now, they were the only family members in recent memory to go to university and must have had some stories to compare.

The fond regard that Oliver (3) and Fred held for one another would last throughout their lives, although it would be sorely tested on occasion. As grown men caught up in the high stakes of the railroad business, they found themselves holding opposing views more than once. And after the sudden death of Oakes Ames and the attendant financial woes that followed, Oliver (3) defended his father’s legacy, while Fred supported his own father’s efforts to recoup funds that Oliver, Jr. believed were his. In other words, Oliver (3) and Fred faced off over money. Yet they moved in similar circles, invested in similar capitalist ventures and, in 1893, when Fred himself died quite suddenly, Oliver (3) grieved, “completely broken down by [the] sad news.”*

Those difficult times lay ahead, but on this day, Oliver (3) had something to celebrate. His father, Oakes, had given him a gold watch, perhaps in honor of his 21st birthday, which was right around the corner. Perhaps, too, Oakes was honoring his middle son for his successful studies at Brown University, studies that Oakes had initially resisted. The watch was certainly a sign that Oakes was proud.

*Oliver Ames Third, Diary, September 13, 1893, Collection of Stonehill College Archives

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