Sarah Lothrop Ames

July 15, 1851

Wring

1851

July 15 Tuesday  Jane washed this forenoon and about

nine or ten Mother Henrietta Rachel and her

babe came  They went home about 11 Oclock

mother will stop a few days  Gustavus left

yesterday morning  The afternoon Mrs H Ames

passed here  Mrs S Ames had a dress maker & did

not come in

Laundry was done today, a day later than normal because of the extra work involved in tidying up after a weekend of houseguests.  It’s not hard to imagine that such a disruption in the routine made Evelina or Jane McHanna or other members of the household think today was Monday instead of Tuesday.

Just as things were getting back to normal, however, more visitors arrived. Evelina’s sister-in-law, Henrietta Gilmore (Mrs. Alson Gilmore), arrived with Evelina’s mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore. As often happened, the senior Mrs. Gilmore came to spend “a few days” with Evelina, her only living daughter.  With them was Henrietta’s daughter, Rachel Howard (Gilmore) Pool (Mrs. John M. Pool or Poole) and her little girl, Ella. Ella, barely one year old, was Hannah Gilmore’s great-granddaughter. Four generations of Gilmore women visited together in the Ames parlor.

In the afternoon, Evelina had yet another sister-in-law pay a call, this one from the Ames side of the family.  Sally Hewes Ames came to visit one last time before leaving; she planned to return to Connecticut the next day. The women likely sat and sewed together; Evelina almost always had sewing or mending in her hands when socializing at home.  As was her wont, she probably gave something to Sally to work on while they talked. Perhaps even old Mrs. Gilmore sewed with them.

July 13, 1851

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July 13 Sunday  We all went to church this forenoon

but my company did not wish to go this

afternoon and I staid with them

About 4 Oclock had a very heavy shower of

rain & hail which prevented us from going to Mr

Manlys garden as we intended.  Oakes A carried

Orinthia home & stoped awhile at Dr Swans

Mrs S Ames & Mrs Mitchell & Witherell called

 

After noting yesterday’s accommodating weather, Old Oliver made a very different report today:

“it was fair to day but rather cool wind north west untill about 5, O,clock when there was a smart shower and a considerable quantity of hail but it was not large enough to do much damage. there was some thunder the hail cut the corn leves in strings – and at Daniel Wheatons and in Taunton it broke a good deal of glass”

Damage to the corn crop was no small matter, although Old Oliver seemed to make light of it.

Evelina, meanwhile, along with Oakes and their sons had to entertain the young houseguests, Melinda and Caleb Norris and Julianne and Benjamin Harris, once they all came home from church. The expedition to Edwin Manley’s garden, a regular and favorite destination for guests, was cancelled because of the bad weather. Instead, the company must have sat inside and listened to the pelting hail.

Eventually, the weather passed and some family members ventured forth.  Oakes Angier carried Orinthia Foss back to the Elijah Howard house, where she was boarding, and stopped to visit Dr. Swan and his two daughters, presumably, on his way home.  Evelina’s sisters-in-law came to call, and tea was likely served to a crowd.

July 5, 1851

Stage

July 5 Saturday  My finger is better and I have been

trying to do some mending  A robe for Miss Burr

was brought to me to make  but I cannot sew

on any thing nice and Mrs Witherell & Ames

made it.  Mr Norris came unexpectedly in the 

stage tonight with Mr Ames & Oliver.

The robe that Evelina was asked to sew was a shroud for Miss Burr for her coffin. Evelina and her sisters-in-law were often asked to sew such robes for the deceased, especially if the deceased had no family with the means or ability to make the robe themselves.  We don’t know who Miss Burr was, but we can infer that she might have been poor and possibly alone.

Sarah Witherell and Sarah Ames sewed the robe, as Evelina’s finger was still too sensitive to push a needle around.  Her finger was getting better, though, or she would have been unable to do any mending.

Oakes Ames and, probably, his middle son Oliver (as opposed to Oliver Jr.) returned from Boston tonight by way of stage coach. The train did not yet go to Easton and wouldn’t until 1855. Accompanying Oakes and Oliver (3) was Caleb Norris, an in-law of the Orr family in Boston.  Caleb had recently married Melinda, one of the Orr daughters. Caleb worked in retail in the city.  His purpose in traveling to Easton was unplanned and remains unclear. Possibly he was just making a visit; he was probably close in age to Oakes Angier and Oliver (3) and may have been friends with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 4, 1851

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July 4th  Have been transplanting some pinks &c to day We have had several heavy showers  Oakes A & Frank rode to Dr Swans to make a call and carry his chaise home  Oliver & wife Harriet & Helen went to Mr Lothrops this afternoon  Mr Ames & self to mothers.  Orinthia has gone to Cohasset with Mr Brett.  Helen came home last night   On the Fourth of July in 1851, the new 31-star flag was raised over America for the first time.  It recognized the addition of California to the union.  Previously known as the California Military District, and before that as the short-lived California Republic, the new state had been officially added back on September 9, 1850, less than three years after gold was discovered there. California’s statehood had been a political struggle in that age of slavery. Only after significant wrangling by Congress and Presidents Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, did compromise legislation, spear-headed by Senator Henry Clay, finally carry the day. There was to be no slavery in California. The 31-star flag would remain the standard until 1858, when Minnesota joined the union. The nation’s 75th birthday was recognized in Washington, D.C. with a ceremony for the laying of a cornerstone of the new addition to the Capitol. Massachusetts’ own Daniel Webster gave a speech. A long speech it was, in the style of the day, in which, among other things, Webster exhorted his audience to acknowledge that the formation of the United States had wrought “astonishing changes […] in the condition and prospects of the American people” and to advise “ye men of the South” that the progress of the country was worth staying in the union for. Ten years before the Civil War, Webster opined that “the secession of Virginia, whether alone or in company, is the most improbable, the greatest of all improbabilities.”  Webster didn’t live long enough to see how wrong he had been. Back in Easton, the shovel shop was closed. Many employees may have tried to picnic despite the rain. In the Ames family, most everyone had someplace to go. Evelina and Oakes rode to the Gilmore farm to visit Evelina’s mother. Oakes Angier and Frank Morton, no doubt tired from their long day yesterday, took the borrowed chaise back to Caleb Swan. Oliver Ames Jr., his wife Sarah and daughter Helen rode over to Sarah’s parents’s house, taking Harriett Ames Mitchell with them. Where was her husband, Asa? Where were her young children? With the Mitchell in-laws in Bridgewater, perhaps. Why weren’t they all together? Even Orinthia Foss was out and about, gone to Cohasset with a Mr. Brett.   * If you want to see other designs for the 31-star flag, check out the Zaricor Flag collection at flagcollection.com

July 2, 1851

Thread

 

Wednesday July 2d  Have had quite a busy day.  This forenoon

cut out three shirts for the sewing circle and worked

a long while in the garden transplanting

Oliver went to Bridgewater and carried Mrs Whitwell

Mrs Witherell and me to the sewing circle at Alsons.

After I got home went to work on boquets

for Oakes & Frank.  Harriet assisted

Mrs S Ames went [to] Exeter this morning

Today is one of those instances when we can’t be certain which Oliver is being referred to.  Did Evelina’s brother-in-law, Oliver Jr., or son, Oliver (3) carry Evelina, Sarah Witherell and Eliza Whitwell to the Sewing Circle at Henrietta Gilmore’s?

Besides attending the monthly gathering of the Unitarian women to sew, Evelina also spent time in her flower garden.  She transplanted a number of flowers and picked several to fashion into two bouquets. Her sons, Oakes Angier Ames and Frank Morton Ames, planned to attend a party in Middleboro the next day and needed what we might call corsages to take to their dates (a modern word they wouldn’t have used.) She and her sister-in-law, Harriett, arranged the flowers appropriately.

Sarah Lothrop Ames had business of her own to attend to.  She went up to Exeter, New Hampshire, where her son Fred Ames was in school. Was she picking him up to bring him home or just visiting?

June 24, 1851

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June 24th  Tuesday  Emily is very much better this morning and

is quite rational  I was at work in the garden

awhile weeding and transplanting and then I

went to sewing on the hair cloth again.  Mother

is knitting a pair of coloured stockings for Susan

of yarn I bought at the factory yesterday

Mrs Sarah Ames stoped awhile here  I get along

very slowly with my work  Spent the afternoon picking hair

Everyone exhaled with relief today as young Emily Witherell recovered from her congestion of the brain. What exactly had been wrong with her? Had she fallen or spiked a fever or had an allergic reaction to something?

Evelina went back to her summer routine of morning work in the garden, midday dinner for the whole family, and sewing in the afternoon. The horse hair upholstery for the new lounge was taking a long time to make. She may have been skilled with a needle, but this project was proving difficult.  She had the company of her mother, however, who was visiting them in North Easton this week.

The elderly Hannah Gilmore was knitting some stockings for her granddaughter, Susie.  She was using yarn that Evelina most likely bought at the Morse factory shown in the photograph. Located in South Easton and owned at the time by E. J. W. Morse, the business produced high quality thread and yarn.

* Photo borrowed from Edmund C. Hands, Easton’s Neighborhoods, 1995, p. 28

June 18, 1851

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June 18th Wednesday  Worked again untill nine in the 

garden and then made the tick for the 

mattress.  This afternoon put the cotton in 

and tied it  Bridget was here a couple

of hours & picked over the curled hair

Towards evening called at Mr E Carrs, Dr Wales

and on Mrs J C Williams at Mr Torreys, Mrs S. Ames

called with me  Augustus gone to Boston

Mr Bartlett spent

last night here

Evelina was making progress on the mattress for her new lounge.  She “made the tick” for the cover and stuffed it with old cotton.  The final cover, to be made of horsehair, was still being worked on. Bridget O’Neil, a servant who usually worked next door, came over to help Evelina with the project.

The long-lasting light of day, as the calendar approached summer solstice, allowed for late socializing. Evelina and her sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames, went out calling.  They visited Esek Carr and, presumably, his wife, Ann; called on young Dr. Ephraim Wales and, again presumably, his wife Maria; and stopped at John Torrey’s to see Mrs. Joshua C. Williams.  Mrs. Williams, we might infer, was a boarder or renter at Col. Torrey’s apartment building, which Evelina called a tenement. Was Mrs. Williams possibly a widow?

A Mr. Bartlett had spent the night with the family.  He was from Maine, so likely had some connection to the shovel works and their ongoing need of wooden handles.

 

June 17, 1851

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1851 June 17th  Worked untill about nine Oclock in

the flower garden  Then cut the tick to the mattress

a[nd] basted it ready to make  Jane was ironing and 

I assisted about dinner  After dinner made three button

holes in Mrs S Ames dress.  Went to Mr

Wm Reeds to tea with Mr Ames, Oliver & wife

Mrs W, Mitchell & Mr & Mrs Whitwell & Alson & wife

 

Gardening, sewing, ironing and cooking made up today’s housework at the Ames’s home on Main Street.  Buttonholes, too, which could be challenging, were a particular specialty of Evelina; many people brought her their buttonholes.  The fact that Sarah Lothrop Ames took her buttonholes to Evelina rather than to a hired dressmaker underscores Evelina’s talent in this department.

William and Abigail Reed must have enjoyed Evelina’s company on Sunday between services, for they invited her back to a small tea party.  The whole Ames family was invited, in fact, and then some. Minus Old Oliver, and the young people, naturally, siblings Oakes, Oliver Jr., Sarah Witherell, and Harriett Mitchell, with wives Evelina and Sarah Ames, gathered at the old professor’s home for a “cuppa.” Reverend William Whitwell and his wife, Eliza, went too, as did Alson and Henrietta Gilmore. That was a good crowd for a 19th century parlor.

Tea was generally the most sociable meal of the day.

 

 

 

June 8, 1851

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June 8th  Have been to meeting all day  Heard Mr Dogget

of Ashby did not like him near as well as Mr.

Whitwell.  Came home at noon with Alson & wife.

Oakes Angier & Orinthia went to night to call on

Miss Perkins at Mr J Kimballs.  Mr Ames & self

called at Mr Peckhams.  It has been a cold cloudy

day for the season and to night rains some.

 

Today was a normal Sunday in Easton, which the Ames family spent at church listening to Mr. Dogget, a visiting preacher who probably had no chance of being as good as Reverend Whitwell, at least in Evelina’s eyes. After church Evelina and Oakes called on John Peckham, a clerk at the shovel works, and his wife Susan.

Things may have been more lively next door at the home of Sarah Lothrop and Oliver Ames, Jr. Their oldest child and only son, Frederick Lothrop Ames, turned 16 years old today. He may have been at home to celebrate, or he may still have been away at school.  Fred was just finishing a year of college preparatory study at Phillips Exeter Academy. Prior to that, he had studied at Concord Academy.  Young as he was, he and his parents expected his next year to be spent at college.

A brilliant business career lay ahead for Fred Ames. By all accounts, but best described by his personal friend Leverett Saltonstall, Frederick Lothrop Ames, “distinguished by his high character, was well known as one of the largest capitalists in the country.”* Not only was Fred a capable member of the management team of O. Ames & Sons, he was, like his father, an active investor and eventual director of the Union Pacific Railroad. He became a strong, competitive railroad man. At the time of his death in 1893, he was “officially connected to some seventy-five railroads,” and held oversight or investment positions in many other enterprises: banks, coal mines, elevators, and an innovative young company called General Electric.

Clearly capable in the world of business, Fred Ames was also a likeable fellow. “No one ever met him without being impressed by his uprightness, intelligence, and good judgment.” “A most kind and generous man,” he donated to and oversaw various charities and hospitals. He reportedly led a happy family life in North Easton and Boston, and created a lasting legacy through his support of the architecture of H. H. Richardson. “A devoted lover of horticulture,” also, he had a famous collection of orchids.

A star among the grandchildren of Old Oliver and Susannah Angier Ames, Frederick Lothrop Ames died too early, dropping of apoplexy – what we would now call a stroke – on the overnight train to New York. He was 58 years old. His legacy would live on.

 

* Leverett Saltonstall, Memoir of the Hon. Frederick Lothrop Ames, A.B.,  The Colonial Society of Massachusetts

June 6, 1851

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1851

June 6 Friday  Worked in the garden an hour or two this morning

mended some cotton stockings swept & dusted &c

About three or four Oclock went with Olivers wife

& Mrs Mitchell to North Bridgewater called at

Mr Summers to take Frank Mitchell home & at Mrs

Carrs & Susan Copelands to get my bonnet  The bonnet

is done well  When I returned home found Orinthia

here.  Jane Howard brought her up. 

At last, a bonnet to take home and trim.  Evelina was clearly pleased.  She picked it up in North Bridgewater (today’s Brockton) with her sisters-in-law Sarah Lothrop Ames and Harriett Ames Mitchell.  The ladies retrieved Harriett’s eldest son, Frank Ames Mitchell, in the process. Not yet ten years old, whom had he been visiting?

Otherwise, Evelina’s day was full of quotidian activities: mending, sweeping, dusting. Nothing out of the ordinary popped up in the domestic department. Gardening, too, continued. On this day, Evelina may have planted the asters she picked up yesterday at the Howards’, compliments of a Howard daughter, Louisa.

Joseph Breck in his Breck’s Book of Flowers, 1851, admired the China Aster: “The varieties are now very numerous, and possess exceeding beauty, some of them being almost as large as a small Dahlia, and much more graceful.”

Breck warned against letting the asters “degenerate in to inferior flowers,” and recommended sowing the seeds in May, “in patches,” and transplanting them to “a bed well prepared the last of June.” It may be that Evelina was transplanting the seedlings a little early.  Time would tell.

* Image from edenbrothers.com