Unitarian

February 16, 1851

Hoarhound or horehound

Hoarhound or horehound

Sun Feb 16  Did not go to church to day on account of a bad

cough  Boiled Molasses, honey, & sugar and a little 

hoarhound for it.  Jane has been to meeting at the

boarding house.  Michael & sister called to see her.

Have been reading some in Margaret by Mr Judd

do not like it at all I believe I shall not finish it

but can spend my time for a better purpose

Mr Whitwell exchanged with Mr Lovell  Very pleasant

Evelina’s cold was long gone, but her cough lingered.  To make it better, she cooked up a nostrum that included hoarhound (or horehound), a medicinal herb cultivated for its efficacy as an expectorant.  She likely grew it in her kitchen garden, or knew where to find it wild.  Brewed with honey, sugar and molasses – the latter being recommended by many household guides as good for the throat –  Evelina’s dose of medicine was warm and comforting.

Her cough may have been real, but it probably wasn’t the only reason Evelina avoided going to meeting this morning.  At church, she would have had to face some of the women who had not attended her Sewing Circle meeting. Her feelings may still have been too hurt to do so and her cough made an excellent excuse for her absence.

Everyone else seemed to be practicing their faith today. The Ames family presumably all went to church and heard Reverend Stephen Lovell stand in for Reverend Whitwell; the two men had finally swapped meetings as originally planned a few weeks ago.  Jane McHanna, the Ames servant originally from Ireland, attended a Catholic service held in the dining room of the Ames boarding house, and apparently came home with fellow-countrymen Michael Burns, the Ames coachman, and his sister.

Today’s new book, Margaret by Reverend Sylvester Judd, did not pass muster.  Evelina started the novel, a story about a young woman raised in the wilds of Maine, and emphatically did “not like it at all.”   Reverend Judd, a Unitarian minister, was a peripheral member of the Transcendental circle; his book is considered one of a very few works of Transcendental fiction.  Margaret Fuller, author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century,  described it as a “work of great power and richness” but critics and other readers such as Evelina found the book incomprehensible.

February 12, 1851

Thread

1851

Feb 12th This was the day for the sewing circle & what a crowded

house! Not one here except Mr Whitwell and our own

families  Father Ames came in to tea & Sarah W

George, Emily & Oliver & wife  Poldens boy was buried

to day  Isabell & Ann went to the funeral & took tea

with Jane after they came back.  I prepared enough

for 40 and think it is very provoking to have none

 of the members  It is a delightful day.  Letter from Miss Foss

No one came to Evelina’s party.

“Very provoking,” indeed.  Mortifying, even, that not a single member of the Sewing Circle attended today’s meeting, unless you count Reverend Whitwell.  All the preparations, the baking, the cleaning, the spools of thread from Boston, all in vain.

Evelina took the rejection with a lacing of humor: “What a crowded house!”  Although disappointed and upset, she must have been grateful for the way the Ames clan filed in to partake of the feast. From Old Oliver (who almost never came to tea) and all three Witherells to Oliver Jr and Sarah Lothrop Ames to her own children and husband, presumably, the family closed ranks around her and filled her parlor with warm bodies.  Even the Irish servant girls on their way home from a wake partook of the spread of food – in the kitchen with Jane McHanna, of course.

So what happened?  Evelina said the day was delightful but her father-in-law, a dependable chronicler of the daily weather, described “the going” that day as “rough + bad” even though the weather itself was “fair”.  After days of terrible weather that had swung from rain to ice and back again, some of the absentee members probably couldn’t drive their wagons out of their own yards.  Bad roads might account for some, if not all, of the truancy.

Nevertheless, the incident raises questions about Evelina’s popularity and social standing.  She was married to one of the most important men in town, and she and Oakes enjoyed the friendship of many.  Is it possible that some of the women in the Unitarian Circle resented her, or felt themselves superior to her?  Where were the women she had grown up with? Were they jealous of her? Did she fail socially in comparison to her sisters-in-law, each whom had a more refined upbringing? Sarah Ames and Sarah Witherell never failed to attract a lively turnout for their Sewing Circles.

All these possibilities must have swirled in her mind.  The true test would come when the Sewing Circle met again at Evelina’s, many months from this day, this awkward day that Evelina surely hoped to forget.

January 26, 1851

Gravestone of Hannah Gilmore

Gravestone of Hannah Gilmore

Jan 26  Sunday  Have been to meeting all day and heard two

excellent sermons from Mr Whitwell  Came home

between meetings.  Alson rode home with Mr Ames

Mother came with us from the afternoon meeting will

stop a few days.  Mr Whitwell walked up this morning

expecting to exchange with Mr Lovell but he (Mr Lovell)

was not prepared.  Mr W says a minister ought always to

be prepared.  Edwin called this evening.  It is a beautiful day.

A scheduling mix-up at church today caused consternation.  Most congregations had a practice of exchanging ministers.  On a regular basis, a minister from one church would swap one Sunday with a minister from another, allowing the congregations to listen to other voices and sermons.   On this Sunday, the scheduled switch between Reverend Whitwell of the Unitarian Church and Reverend Lovell of the soon-to-disband Protestant-Methodist assembly failed to take place.  Mr. Whitwell wasn’t pleased, but he seemed to recover just fine.  He delivered two more “excellent sermons.”

“Mother” was Hannah Lothrop Gilmore, or Mrs. Joshua Gilmore, as she would have been known, or perhaps  The Widow Gilmore, her husband having passed away in 1836.  One year shy of eighty, she was the mother of eight children, of whom only three were still alive.  Evelina was her only living daughter.

Mrs. Gilmore lived most of the time with her middle son, Alson, his wife, Henrietta, and their children at the family farm in the southeastern corner of Easton.  Just north of the town line with Raynham, the Gilmore property lay on what was known as the Turnpike Road.  In the distant past, Joshua Gilmore had maintained a tavern at that site, and had collected the fees from travelers on that road.  In 1851, the family still got income from the Turnpike, but the tavern was gone.  The land was all farm.

Occasionally, Mrs. Gilmore would visit with her daughter in North Easton.  Alson would carry her to church and after the service was over, Hannah would leave with Oakes and Evelina to stay at their home for the week.   While in North Easton, she’d be able to visit not only with her Ames grandchldren, but also with other grandchildren in the area, like Abby and Malvina Torrey.  And on this Sunday, her grandson Edwin Williams Gilmore, a grown son of Alson who no longer lived at the farm, paid a visit.  He would soon be building a home close to the Ameses.

January 12, 1851

Preach

/51 Jan 12 Sunday  Have been to church all day and heard two

excellent sermons from Mr Whitwell.  The afternoon text was

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old

he will not depart from it”  Passed this evening at Mr Willard

Lothrop with Mr Ames & met with Minister Norris & Mr Torrey

This noon I stopped to hear Mr Whitwells class in the Sabbath

School afterwards went into Mr Daniel Reeds with Mother

Very warm + pleasant for the time of the year

The Ames family, Unitarians all, attended meeting today and stayed for both services, which encompassed a morning program, an intermission, and an afternoon program.  In their family pew, Evelina, Oakes, Oakes Angier, Oliver (3), Frank Morton and Susan sat with or near Old Oliver, Sarah Witherell and her children, George and Emily.  Also nearby, if not in the same pew, sat Oliver Jr, Sarah Lothrop Ames and their children, Fred and Helen, faces upturned to hear Reverend Whitwell deliver the day’s two sermons.  Eight-year old Susie may have squirmed in her seat; she wasn’t inclined to sit still for the second service.  And Oakes Ames was known to fall asleep, however inspiring Mr. Whitwell’s words were to Evelina.

In 1851, the Unitarians congregated at a church in Easton Centre, a few miles south of the village of North Easton (but still within the boundaries of the Town of Easton, Massachusetts.)  Like many families, the Ameses had to travel by carriage or sleigh to attend Sunday service.  The adults would have ridden, or “been carried,” as the expression went,  but the children may have had to walk the distance.  Children walking to church, regardless of distance, was common.  If this was true for the Ames family, we might imagine that cousins Oliver (3) and Fred walked together, as they were close friends.

At intermission, children went into Sunday School and the adults socialized.  Winthrop Ames, a grandson-to-be, described the scene in his family history (from 1937):

“They tethered their horses in a long, open shed and stayed through both morning and afternoon services, eating the luncheons they had brought and gossiping with the townsfolk during the intermission.”

On this winter Sunday Evelina and her mother, Hannah Lothrop Gilmore visited at the nearby home of Daniel and Mary Reed.  Socializing continued in the evening as Evelina and Oakes called on Willard Lothrop.