Oliver Ames | evelinaames

February 4, 1852

Mending

1852

Wednesday 4th Feb Have been mending shirts and have

done up some collars & sleeves &c This evening

have been to Alsons with Mr Ames, met the

Pools Mr & Mrs A Howard & Harvey had a

pretty lively time. Edwin & Augustus with their

wives were also there It is a beautiful moonshiny

night and have had a pleasant ride. O A & Oliver

went to a ball to Canton.

Evelina sat with her sewing and mending for most of the day, catching up on some of the more ordinary aspects of keeping her family well-clothed. She was motivated in part by the need to prepare her son Oliver (3)’s clothes for his return to college. Her diligence was rewarded; she got a lot of work done, and at the end of the day she and Oakes went out for the evening. Right next door, in the other part of the house, Oakes’s youngest brother William Leonard was visiting, yet Evelina doesn’t mention him.

She and Oakes rode south to her brother’s farm, where they met with family and friends for “a pretty lively time.” They saw some of the Pools, an extended family in the area, and Asa and Henrietta Howard, another farming family. (A year earlier, Evelina had sewn a shroud for one of the Howard’s children.) The Harveys, from whom Evelina bought butter, were present as well.

The beautiful moon, not quite full, shone down from a starry sky on other winter gatherings. Oliver Ames (3) turned 21 years old today, after all; he celebrated the occasion with his older brother, Oakes Angier, by attending a dance in Canton. One imagines that they had a good time, too.

February 3, 1852

Union soldiers playing whist, circa 1861

1852 Feb

Tuesday 3d Have been looking over the boys shirts and

have mended some of them. Fred carried me

to call on Augustus’s wife, called at Mr Torreys

an[d] Mrs J Williams engaged her to make some shirts

for Oliver Mr & Mrs Williams passed the evening

here. Have done but very little sewing

The boys & Joshua played cards.

Chess wasn’t the only game that people played in the 19th century. As Evelina noted today, her sons and a friend named Joshua played cards. Perhaps Fred Ames played, too. The game they preferred was whist, a precursor of today’s contract bridge.

Whist was played according to rules established by the accepted authority, Edmond Hoyle, an Englishman in the 18th century who had codified explicit guidelines for various card games. Whist followed “a rigid set of rules, etiquette and techniques.”** Like bridge, it required four players, one deck of 52 cards (then known as a French deck), a bidding process, and trick taking. Trump was determined by the last card laid down and, unlike bridge, there was no dummy hand.

The Ames family loved playing whist. Oliver (3) often writes in his early journals of playing whist with his grandfather, Old Oliver. Night after wintry night, the men would play, the grandsons occasionally beating their grandfather. Evelina seldom writes of playing herself; she and her sisters-in-law usually sat to the side, conversing, sewing or reading.

* www13thmass.org/1861/williamsport

** http://www.kristenkoster.com/2012/02/a-regency-primer-on-how-to-play-whist/

February 1, 1852

Feb 1st 1852

Sunday A very stormy day of snow & not one

of the family have been to meeting and Mother could

not go home as she intended. Have written a letter to

Louisa J Mower and have been reading Went into the

office awhile to sit with Mr Ames The boys came

near tearing the house down while I was gone. Fred

& Oliver accused Oakes A of stealing fruit cake

Oliver (3) and his cousin, Fred Ames, ganged up on Oliver’s older brother, Oakes Angier, while their parents were next door at the office. In a fight over fruit cake, the three young men yelled and pummeled and wrestled. Evelina came home to the disarray and certainly reprimanded them all. The twenty-something brothers were lucky that their mother, not their father, was the parent who returned first. Oakes Ames was known to mete out severe physical punishment.

Wrestling was a popular sport in the 19th century, one that the Ames men were expert at, according to tales that have come down through the family. The legend is writ large. Winthrop Ames describes it best:

“In Oliver’s time wrestling was as popular a sport as baseball or football is today,” he wrote in 1937, ” It was not considered beneath the dignity of anyone to engage in it, and local champions were […] highly esteemed[…] Oliver senior was the acknowledged champion of the neighborhood, and though often challenged by contestants who sometimes came long distances to meet him, was never defeated […]

“He was not only immensely strong – he once knocked down a horse that bit him with a single blow, and lifted a wrestling opponent much heavier than himself clear of the ground and tossed him across the ring in protest against some unfair trick – but he was also agile and expert in all the technical grips, holds and falls of the sport. He taught his sons to wrestle scientifically; and Horatio, the mighty of bulk, and Oliver junior became so proficient that they succeeded him as town champions […]

“[T]he old gentleman once said to one of them (according to some this was Horatio, to others Oliver junior) ‘Son, neither you nor I have ever been beaten. Old as I am I may still be the better man. Let’s have it out.’ So, forbidding anyone to follow them, father and son went to a secluded clearing in the woods and had a private bout. But neither would ever tell which was the victor.”*

Wrestling was clearly an outlet for the Ames men. Other than today’s rough-housing by the young men, it was a quiet Sunday at the Ames compound. Evelina wrote a letter and read. No one went to church, the weather being too stormy even to carry old Mrs. Gilmore back to the farm. Small wonder that the young men displayed a little cabin fever.

*Winthrop Ames, The Ames Family of Easton, Massachusetts, pp.115-116.

January 31, 1852

Jan 31st 1852

Saturday have been choring about house & mending most

all day. Made a robe for Mitchell Willis child with

Mrs S Ames assistance Edwin & wife here to tea Mrs S

Ames has been here about three hours with her work

Mrs Witherell here awhile this afternoon. Mr Frank

Russell was buried this afternoon. My three sons went

to the funeral. Quite a hard snow storm Mr Ames to Boston

Inclement weather didn’t keep the Ames men from moving around today. Oakes Ames traveled into Boston on business, as he usually did on Saturdays. His sons, Oakes Angier, Oliver (3) and Frank Morton, rode to Easton Center for the funeral of Frank Russell, a 67-year-old blacksmith and veteran of the War of 1812. Russell had died two days earlier from pleurisy, and, despite the “hard snow storm,” he was buried at the Seth Pratt Cemetery with friends and family in attendance. What had been his connection to the Ames’s sons? Had he worked for the shovel company?

Evelina, too, was tending to a death outside the family. She and her sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames, sewed a burial robe for Luella Willis, the two-year old daughter of Mitchell and Amanda Willis. Like Frank Russell, little Luella would have to be buried in cold ground during snowy weather. Once the services were over, the living would carry on with their chores, their commitments and their lives. Evelina would turn to “mending most all day.”

January 30, 1852

Jan 1852

Jan 30th Friday Have commenced making a flannel

skirt for self & finished Susans dark print apron.

Mother [and] self passed the afternoon at Edwins. Mr

Ames came to tea. Mrs S Ames called there with Mrs

Holmes. Mrs Witherell and the others returned to

night She has not her teeth but is to send for them

Oliver & Fred went to James Mitchell and called at

several other places had a fine time Oliver played

chess with Judge Mitchell

Oliver Ames (3), Evelina’s middle son and a future governor of Massachusetts, was still home from college, as was his first cousin, Frederick Lothrop Ames. The two young men were having “a fine time” on their winter break. Chess was just one of the games they might have played to while away the dark evenings, another being whist.

Chess had been around for centuries, having first developed in India and the Islamic world. It had evolved over time; dark and light squares on a chessboard were first introduced in the 10th century, for instance, rules for a stalemate or draw in the 15th, and so on.

By the nineteenth century, chess was really coming into its own. In 1802, one J. Humphreys published a book called Chess Made Easy. In 1830, the first known female chess player was acknowledged (though probably not encouraged.) The first international chess tournament was held in London in 1851, won by Adolf Anderssen, and in 1852, the year we find Oliver Ames (3) playing the game on a winter’s night in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, sandglasses were first used to time a game.

Before the decade was finished, an American prodigy name Paul Morphy came to fame, winning nearly every game he played and defeating most of the older expert players. In the United States, a chess “epidemic” was born.

January 29, 1852

1852

Jan 29th Thursday Mrs Witherell Oliver 3rd & Fred & George went

to Bridgewater this morning for Mrs Witherells temporary

set of teeth. Father & Mrs S Ames & Emily here to dine

Mrs S Ames came about half past eleven and spent

the rest of the day. Have written a letter to Harriet

Ames [of] Burlington. Went after mother in a sleigh to night

Augustus & wife spent the evening Three evenings this week

Sarah Ames Witherell traveled to Bridgewater today to pick up a “temporary set of teeth” to replace the real ones that had been pulled out earlier this month. It turned out that they weren’t ready, so she had to return home without them. As before, she was accompanied by several family members including her son George Oliver Witherell and two of her nephews, first cousins and good friends Oliver (3) and Frederick Lothrop Ames, who were still home on a recess from college.

Evelina, meanwhile, fed midday dinner to all the family members who stayed behind in Easton. Sarah’s daughter, Emily, didn’t go with her mother this time; unlike Oliver and Fred, she and Susie Ames may well have been back in school. Evelina may have been feeling the strain of so much company. She notes that her nephew Augustus and his wife, Hannah Lincoln Gilmore, had come to call “Three evenings this week.” Augustus, who did a lot of work for Oakes and Oliver Jr., often made himself at home at the Ames’s.

Harriet Ames of Burlington, Vermont, to whom Evelina wrote today, was a spinster cousin. Her mother was the widow of Old Oliver’s brother, John.*

*not the same John Ames who manufactured paper in Springfield

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 26, 1852

Ames Plantation, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, ca. 1880’s

Jan 26/51 (sic)

Monday commenced making Susan a flannel skirt

Mother & self went into Edwins with our work and staid

about 3 hours came home to tea. Evening Augustus

Hannah and Mrs Witherell were here Oliver Jr

and Oakes A went to Mr Whitwells expecting to meet

Willard L there. It has been a beautiful day. Mrs Buck

and Sarah called at Edwins while we were there and

were very polite

It was Monday, which meant that Evelina probably did a little housework this morning before picking up her sewing. As usual, Jane McHanna managed the Monday washing and Evelina didn’t need to paint or fix or oversee anything but the flannel skirt she was making for her daughter. After midday dinner, she and her elderly mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, walked to the home of Edwin Gilmore and sat with his bride, Augusta Pool Gilmore, each of them tending to their sewing. It seemed quiet on the home front.

In another decade, it would be anything but quiet – at least across most of the country. The United States would be in the first upheavals of an impending civil war. “The Great Rebellion,” they would call it. On this particular day in January, 1861, Louisiana would secede from the Union, the sixth of eleven states to do so. When the war ended in 1865, the Confederacy defeated, Louisiana and her sister states would ultimately be accepted back into the Union through the arduous and hotly political process known as Reconstruction.

In another two decades, the economies of the southern states would still be struggling, enabling many northerners to acquire cheap land and cast-off businesses. In 1873, the three Ames brothers – Oakes Angier, Oliver (3) and Frank Morton – would purchase two old plantations, Estelle and South Side in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, right across the Mississippi from New Orleans. On 13,000 acres, they would grow and refine sugar. The business ran until the start of the 20th century, overseen eventually by one of Frank’s sons. The property, which”stretched for more than one mile on the river and ran about eight miles deep”* was eventually sold. Today that land comprises much of the city of Marrero, Louisiana. Little is left of the Ames influence except an eponymous boulevard running through the city’s center.

* Betsy Swanson, Historic Jefferson Parish: From Shore to Shore, p. 97.

January 25, 1852

1852

Jan 25 Sunday Have had a lovely day although it is somewhat

cold. The first pleasant sabbath we have had for

a long while We have all been to church except

Mrs Witherell who still stays at home on account

of her teeth being out. Mother came with us

from church to night. We have had fine sleighing

for a long time Mr Whitwell gave us a fine

sermon this afternoon

Old Oliver, too, appreciated today’s weather: “this is a fair pleasant day wind south west + thaws some it is the first fair Sunday we had for a long time…” He also noted with satisfaction that “we began to fill our new ice hous yesterday,”* much of it with the ice that his grandsons Oliver (3) and Fred Ames had harvested on Friday.

The ice house was built right next to the pond** from which the ice was harvested. It was probably lined with sawdust for insulation; when the ice was removed, block by block, the sawdust absorbed some of the moisture and kept the building cool. Even if the temperature outside rose, the temperature inside stayed relatively low. The ice was crucial to the storage and preservation of food in those days before refrigeration.

Today’s fair weather enticed everyone to church except Sarah Ames Witherell, who preferred to remain somewhat hidden while she recovered from recent dentistry. The group drove the sleigh (or sleighs) to the meeting house, which was a couple of miles south of their family compound. Evelina sat in the family pew and enjoyed herself; she always liked hearing what Reverend Whitwell had to say. She and her family brought her mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, home for a visit.

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

** Thanks to information from James Carlino, Dwight MacKerron and John Ames, we believe the ice pond in question may be Monte Pond, on the north side of Elm Street, just east of Rte. 138 in the northeastern corner of Easton. John also remembers an ice house next to French Pond on Union Street, also just east of Rte. 138, north of and parallel to Elm Street. He bought some old ice tools there in the 1970s that he used in making sculpture.

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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