Seba Howard

August 30, 1851

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*

Sat Aug 30th Have been marking Olivers clothes and fixing

them.  Called to Mr Whitwells Major Seba Howards

Mr Samuel Dunbars and at Alsons with Pauline

Took tea at Alsons brought Orinthia home with us

All of Mr John Pools family were there or rather

Rachel Augusta & Elisabeth.  Mrs Stevens came

there yesterday  Alson & Mr N Hall here to

dinner & tea

Another sociable Saturday was enjoyed by many throughout Easton, as friends and neighbors rode here and there calling on one another. As one modern historian has noted, “formal and informal forms of socializing were the most common amusements throughout the period. Then, as now, folks liked to visit one another, usually after supper and on weekends. The middle class gathered in their parlors, talked, sang, played games, and so on.”**

Evelina certainly did her part. With her friend Pauline Dean, she paid calls on various friends, including the Howards, the Dunbars, and the dependable Reverend Whitwell and his wife Eliza. At her brother Alson’s farm, where they took tea and visited with old Mrs. Gilmore, they chatted with three daughters of the John Pool family, including Rachel, Augusta and Elizabeth.  Rachel and Augusta had visited Evelina earlier in the month and accompanied her to the company store and the shovel shop.  Evelina was a friend to young women – especially to Orinthia Foss, the schoolteacher, whom they scooped up and took back to North Easton.

On their way home, as they likely rode past fields of Queen Anne’s Lace and Goldenrod, did they acknowledge that summer was coming to an end?

 

* Photograph by John S. Ames III

** Marc McCutcheon, Everyday Life in the 1800s, Cincinnati, 1993, p. 200.

 

August 13, 1851

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Wednesday 13th  Went to Mrs Holmes early this morning to

make her bed & tie her hair and was there most

of the forenoon.  Passed the afternoon at Major

Seba Howards with Mrs S Ames.  Met a Mr & Miss

Howard from Philadelphia two Miss Tolmans from

New Bedford & Henrietta & Mrs Lewis Keith.  Mr & Miss

Howard are very pleasant.  Had an introduction

to Mr Brett

First thing after breakfast, Evelina went to see Harriet Holmes, a neighbor who was seriously ill.  As she had done on other days, she made Harriet’s bed and tied up her hair. She spent the morning there, probably giving others in the household – specifically Harriet’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Holmes – some time off.  Presumably Mrs. Holmes or her son, Bradford, had kept watch the night before.

Everyone’s vigilance was rewarded, as Harriet Holmes began to improve. Whatever it was that had made her sick began to abate. This would be the last visit that Evelina made to the house or, at least, the last one she made note of. Harriet would recover.

Evelina must have been relieved. She was certainly optimistic enough to set aside her care-giving and dedicate the afternoon to socializing.  She and her sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames, called on Major Seba Howard and his wife, Eleutheria. There they were introduced to several guests, some of whom were “very pleasant.”  The afternoon was a much needed change of pace after the worry of the past several days.

 

June 21, 1851

1687-Illustration_from_Theosophie_and_Alchemie-Michael_Maier_and_Johann_Theodor_de_Bry-300x282

21 June Saturday  Early this morning Mrs. Seba Howard

brought Orinthia up and found me in the

garden weeding. We worked there an hour or two

and then went to sewing.  Orinthia on her dress

and I on the hair cloth.  Harriet came and sat

with us awhile in the afternoon and while she

was in I worked on the sleeves to my plaid stone

colour borage  Orinthia called on Abby   Pleasant

Weeding continued to be the dominant occupation of Evelina’s early morning hours. On this Saturday morning her young friend, Orinthia Foss, arrived for the day and immediately stepped to the garden to help weed. Orinthia was carried up from the southern part of town by a contemporary of Evelina named Eleutheria Howard, wife of Major Seba Howard.

Today was summer solstice, the official start of summer and the high water mark of daylight; the women probably would have enjoyed being outside in the garden all day long, but sewing and other duties called. Each woman had a dress she was working on, and Evelina was still piecing together a horsehair cover for her new lounge. Just as they had sat on so many days during the late winter, so the two sat today, on chairs near the windows for light, with folds of cloth in their laps. Harriett Ames Mitchell, Evelina’s sister-in-law, joined them in the afternoon.

Later in the day Orinthia went to call on Abby Torrey, Evelina’s niece who lived right in the village of North Easton.