1854
1854
January 1, 1854.—About fifty little boys and girls at intervals knocked at the front door to-day, to wish us Happy New Year. We had pennies and cakes and apples ready for them. The pennies, especially, seemed to attract them and we noticed the same ones several times. Aunt Mary Carr made lovely New Year cakes with a pretty flower stamped on before they were baked.
February4, 1854.—We heard to-day of the death of our little half-sister, Julia Dey Richards, in Penn Yan, yesterday, and I felt so sorry I couldn’t sleep last night so I made up some verses about her and this morning wrote them down and gave them to Grandfather. He liked them so well he wanted me to show them to Miss Clark and ask her to revise them. I did and she said she would hand them to her sister Mary to correct. When she handed them back they were very much nicer than they were at first and Grandfather had me copy them and he pasted them into one of his Bibles to keep.
Saturday.—Anna and I went to call on Miss Upham to-day. She is a real old lady and lives withher niece, Mrs. John Bates, on Gibson Street. Our mother used to go to school to her at the Seminary. Miss Upham said to Anna, “Your mother was a lovely woman. You are not at all like her, dear.” I told Anna she meant in looks I was sure, but Anna was afraid she didn’t.
Sunday.—Mr. Daggett’s text this morning was the 22nd chapter of Revelation, 16th verse, “I am the root and offspring of David and the bright and morning star.” Mrs. Judge Taylor taught our Sunday School class to-day and she said we ought not to read our S. S. books on Sunday. I always do. Mine to-day was entitled, “Cheap Repository Tracts by Hannah More,” and it did not seem unreligious at all.
Tuesday.—A gentleman visited our school to-day whom we had never seen. Miss Clark introduced him to us. When he came in, Miss Clark said, “Young ladies,” and we all stood up and bowed and said his name in concert. Grandfather says he would rather have us go to school to Miss Clark than any one else because she teaches us manners as well as books. We girls think that he is a very particular friend of Miss Clark. He is very nice looking, but we don’t know where he lives. Laura Chapin says he is an architect. I looked it up in the dictionary and it says one who plans or designs. I hope he does not plan to get married to Miss Clarkand take her away and break up the school, but I presume he does, for that is usually the way.
Monday.—There was a minister preached in our church last night and some people say he is the greatest minister in the world. I think his name was Mr. Finney. Grandmother said I could go with our girl, Hannah White. We sat under the gallery, in Miss Antoinette Pierson’s pew. There was a great crowd and he preached good. Grandmother says that our mother was a Christian when she was ten years old and joined the church and she showed us some sermons that mother used to write down when she was seventeen years old, after she came home from church, and she has kept them all these years. I think children in old times were not as bad as they are now.
Tuesday.—Mrs. Judge Taylor sent for me to come over to see her to-day. I didn’t know what she wanted, but when I got there she said she wanted to talk and pray with me on the subject of religion. She took me into one of the wings. I never had been in there before and was frightened at first, but it was nice after I got used to it. After she prayed, she asked me to, but I couldn’t think of anything but “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and I was afraid she would not like that, so I didn’t say anything. When I got home and told Anna, she said, “Caroline, I presume probably Mrs. Taylor wants you tobe a Missionary, but I shan’t let you go.” I told her she needn’t worry for I would have to stay at home and look after her. After school to-night I went out into Abbie Clark’s garden with her and she taught me how to play “mumble te peg.” It is fun, but rather dangerous. I am afraid Grandmother won’t give me a knife to play with. Abbie Clark has beautiful pansies in her garden and gave me some roots.
April 1.—This is April Fool’s Day. It is not a very pleasant day, but I am not very pleasant either. I spent half an hour this morning very pleasantly writing a letter to my Father but just as I had finished it, Grandmother told me something to write which I did not wish to and I spoke quite disrespectfully, but I am real sorry and I won’t do so any more.
Lucilla and Louisa Field were over to our house to dinner to-day. We had a very good dinner indeed. In the afternoon, Grandmother told me that I might go over to Aunt Ann’s on condition that I would not stay, but I stayed too long and got my indian rubbers real muddy and Grandmother did not like it. I then ate my supper and went to bed at ten minutes to eight o’clock.
Monday, April 3.—I got up this morning at quarter before six o’clock. I then read my three chaptersin the Bible, and soon after ate my breakfast, which consisted of ham and eggs and buckwheat cakes. I then took a morning walk in the garden and rolled my hoop. I went to school at quarter before 9 o’clock. Miss Clark has us recite a verse of scripture in response to roll call and my text for the morning was the 8th verse of the 6th chapter of Matthew, “Be ye not therefore like unto them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.” We then had prayers. I then began to write my composition and we had recess soon after. In the afternoon I recited grammar, wrote my dictation lesson and Dictionary lesson. I was up third in my Dictionary class but missed two words, and instead of being third in the class, I was fifth. After supper I read my Sunday School book, “A Shepherd’s Call to the Lambs of his Flock.” I went to bed as usual at ten minutes to 8 o’clock.
April4.—We went into our new schoolroom to-day at Miss Clark’s school. It is a very nice room and much larger than the one we occupied before. Anna and I were sewing on our dolls’ clothes this afternoon and we talked so much that finally Grandmother said, “the one that speaks first is the worst; and the one that speaks last is the best.” We kept still for quite a while, which gave Grandmother a rest, but was very hard for us, especially Anna. Pretty soon Grandmother forgot and asked us a question, so we had the joke on her. AfterwardsAnna told me she would rather “be the worst,” than to keep still so long again.
Wednesday.—Grandmother sent Anna and me up to Butcher Street after school to-day to invite Chloe to come to dinner. I never saw so many black people as there are up there. We saw old Lloyd and black Jonathan and Dick Valentine and Jerusha and Chloe and Nackie. Nackie was pounding up stones into sand, to sell, to scour with. Grandmother often buys it of her. I think Chloe was surprised, but she said she would be ready, to-morrow, at eleven o’clock, when the carriage came for her. I should hate to be as fat as Chloe. I think she weighs 300. She is going to sit in Grandfather’s big arm chair, Grandmother says.
We told her we should think she would rather invite white ladies, but she said Chloe was a poor old slave and as Grandfather had gone to Saratoga she thought it was a good time to have her. She said God made of one blood all the people on the face of the earth, so we knew she would do it and we didn’t say any more. When we talk too much, Grandfather always says N. C. (nuff ced). She sent a carriage for Chloe and she came and had a nice dinner, not in the kitchen either. Grandmother asked her if there was any one else she would like to see before she went home and she said, “Yes, Miss Rebekah Gorham,” so she told the coachman to take her down there and wait for her to make acall and then take her home and he did. Chloe said she had a very nice time, so probably Grandmother was all right as she generally is, but I could not be as good as she is, if I should try one hundred years.
June.—Our cousin, George Bates, of Honolulu, came to see us to-day. He has one brother, Dudley, but he didn’t come. George has just graduated from college and is going to Japan to be a doctor. He wrote such a nice piece in my album I must copy it, “If I were a poet I would celebrate your virtues in rhyme, if I were forty years old, I would write a homily on good behavior; being neither, I will quote two familiar lines which if taken as a rule of action will make you a good and happy woman:
“Honor and shame from no condition rise,Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
“Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
I think he is a very smart young man and will make a good doctor to the heathen.
Saturday.—Grandfather took us down street to be measured for some new patten leather shoes at Mr. Ambler’s. They are going to be very nice ones for best. We got our new summer hats from Mrs. Freshour’s millinery and we wore them over toshow to Aunt Ann and she said they were the very handsomest bonnets she had seen this year.
Tuesday.—When we were on our way to school this morning we met a lot of people and girls and boys going to a picnic up the lake. They asked us to go, too, but we said we were afraid we could not. Mr. Alex. Howell said, “Tell your Grandfather I will bring you back safe and sound unless the boat goes to the bottom with all of us.” So we went home and told Grandfather and much to our surprise he said we could go. We had never been on a boat or on the lake before. We went up to the head on the steamer “Joseph Wood” and got off at Maxwell’s Point. They had a picnic dinner and lots of good things to eat. Then we all went into the glen and climbed up through it. Mr. Alex. Howell and Mrs. Wheeler got to the top first and everybody gave three cheers. We had a lovely time riding back on the boat and told Grandmother we had the very best time we ever had in our whole lives.
May 26.—There was an eclipse of the sun to-day and we were very much excited looking at it. General Granger came over and gave us some pieces of smoked glass. Miss Clark wanted us to write compositions about it so Anna wrote, “About eleven o’clock we went out to see if it had come yet, but it hadn’t come yet, so we waited awhile and thenlooked again and it had come, and there was a piece of it cut out of it.” Miss Clark said it was a very good description and she knew Anna wrote it all herself.
I handed in a composition, too, about the eclipse, but I don’t think Miss Clark liked it as well as she did Anna’s, because it had something in it about “the beggarly elements of the world.” She asked me where I got it and I told her that it was in a nice story book that Grandmother gave me to read entitled “Elizabeth Thornton or the Flower and Fruit of Female Piety, and other sketches,” by Samuel Irenaeus Prime. This was one of the other sketches: It commenced by telling how the moon came between the sun and the earth, and then went on about the beggarly elements. Miss Clark asked me if I knew what they meant and I told her no, but I thought they sounded good. She just smiled and never scolded me at all. I suppose next time I must make it all up myself.
There is a Mr. Packer in town, who teaches all the children to sing. He had a concert in Bemis Hall last night and he put Anna on the top row of the pyramid of beauty and about one hundred children in rows below. She ought to have worn a white dress as the others did but Grandmother said her new pink barège would do. I curled her hair all around in about thirty curls and she looked very nice. She waved the flag in the shape of the letter S and sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” and allthe others joined in the chorus. It was perfectly grand.
Monday.—When we were on our way to school this morning we saw General Granger coming, and Anna had on such a homely sunbonnet she took it off and hid it behind her till he had gone by. When we told Grandmother she said, “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” I never heard of any one who knew so many Bible verses as Grandmother. Anna thought she would be sorry for her and get her a new sunbonnet, but she didn’t.
Sunday.—We have Sunday School at nine o’clock in the morning now. Grandfather loves to watch us when we walk off together down the street, so he walks back and forth on the front walk till we come out, and gives us our money for the contribution. This morning we had on our new white dresses that Miss Rosewarne made and new summer hats and new patten leather shoes and our mitts. When he had looked us all over he said, with a smile, “The Bible says, let your garments be always white.” After we had gone on a little ways, Anna said: “If Grandmother had thought of that verse I wouldn’t have had to wear my pink barège dress to the concert.” I told her she need not feel bad about that now, for she sang as well as any of them and looked just as good. She always believes everythingI say, although she does not always do what I tell her to. Mr. Noah T. Clarke told us in Sunday School last Sunday that if we wanted to take shares in the missionary ship,Morning Star,we could buy them at 10 cents apiece, and Grandmother gave us $1 to-day so we could have ten shares. We got the certificate with a picture of the ship on it, and we are going to keep it always. Anna says if we pay the money, we don’t have to go.
Sunday.—I almost forgot that it was Sunday this morning and talked and laughed just as I do week days. Grandmother told me to write down this verse before I went to church so I would remember it: “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools.” I will remember it now, sure. My feet are all right any way with my new patten leather shoes on but I shall have to look out for my head. Mr. Thomas Howell read a sermon to-day as Mr. Daggett is out of town. Grandmother always comes upstairs to get the candle and tuck us in before she goes to bed herself, and some nights we are sound asleep and do not hear her, but last night we only pretended to be asleep. She kneeled down by the bed and prayed aloud for us, that we might be good children and that she might have strength given to her from on high to guide us in the straight and narrow path which leads to life eternal. Those were her very words. After she had gone downstairs we sat up in bed and talked about it and promised each other to be good, and crossed our hearts and “hoped to die” if we broke our promise. Then Anna was afraid we would die, but I told her I didn’t believe we would be as good as that, so we kissed each other and went to sleep.
Mr. Noah T. ClarkeMiss Upham
Mr. Noah T. Clarke
Miss Upham
Monday.—“Old Alice” was at our house to-day and Grandmother gave her some flowers. She hid them in her apron for she said if she should meet any little children and they should ask for them she would have to let them go. Mrs. Gooding was at our house to-day and made a carpet. We went over to Aunt Mary Carr’s this evening to see the gas and the new chandeliers. They are brontz.
Tuesday.—My three chapters that I read this morning were about Josiah’s zeal and reformation; 2nd, Jerusalem taken by Nebuchadnezzar; 3rd, Jerusalem besieged and taken. The reason that we always read the Bible the first thing in the morning is because it says in the Bible, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Grandmother says she hopes we will treasure up all these things in our hearts and practice them in our lives. I hope so, too. This morning Anna got very mad at one of the girls and Grandmother told her she ought toreturn good for evil and heap coals of fire on her head. Anna said she wished she could and burn her all up, but I don’t think she meant it.
Wednesday.—I got up this morning at twenty minutes after five. I always brush my teeth every morning, but I forget to put it down here. I read my three chapters in Job and played in the garden and had time to read Grandmother a piece in the paper about some poor children in New York. Anna and I went over to Aunt Ann’s before school and she gave us each two sticks of candy apiece. Part of it came from New York and part from Williamstown, Mass., where Henry goes to college. Ann Eliza is going down street with us this afternoon to buy us some new summer bonnets. They are to be trimmed with blue and white and are to come to five dollars. We are going to Mr. Stannard’s store also, to buy us some stockings. I ought to buy me a new thimble and scissors for I carried my sewing to school to-day and they were inside of it very carelessly and dropped out and got lost. I ought to buy them with my own money, but I haven’t got any, for I gave all I had (two shillings) to Anna to buy Louisa Field a cornelian ring. Perhaps Father will send me some money soon, but I hate to ask him for fear he will rob himself. I don’t like to tell Grandfather how very careless I was, though I know he would say, “Accidents will happen.”
Thursday.—I was up early this morning because a dressmaker, Miss Willson, is coming to make me a new calico dress. It is white with pink spots in it and Grandfather bought it in New York. It is very nice indeed and I think Grandfather was very kind to get it for me. I had to stay at home from school to be fitted. I helped sew and run my dress skirt around the bottom and whipped it on the top. I went to school in the afternoon, but did not have my lessons very well. Miss Clark excused me because I was not there in the morning. Some girls got up on our fence to-day and walked clear across it, the whole length. It is iron and very high and has a stone foundation. Grandmother asked them to get down, but I think they thought it was more fun to walk up there than it was on the ground. The name of the little girl that got up first was Mary Lapham. She is Lottie Lapham’s cousin. I made the pocket for my dress after I got home from school and then Grandfather said he would take us out to ride, so he took us way up to Thaddeus Chapin’s on the hill. Julia Phelps was there, playing with Laura Chapin, for she is her cousin. Henry and Ann Eliza Field came over to call this evening. Henry has come home from Williams College on his vacation and he is a very pleasant young man, indeed. I am reading a continued story inHarper’s Magazine. It is called Little Dorritt, by Charles Dickens, and is very interesting.
Friday, May.—Miss Clark told us we could have a picnic down to Sucker Brook this afternoon and she told us to bring our rubbers and lunches by two o’clock; but Grandmother was not willing to let us go; not that she wished to deprive us of any pleasure for she said instead we could wear our new black silk basks and go with her to Preparatory lecture, so we did, but when we got there we found that Mr. Daggett was out of town so there was no meeting. Then she told us we could keep dressed up and go over to Aunt Mary Carr’s and take her some apples, and afterwards Grandfather took us to ride to see old Mrs. Sanborn and old Mr. and Mrs. Atwater. He is ninety years old and blind and deaf, so we had quite a good time after all.
Rev. Mr. Dickey, of Rochester, agent for the Seaman’s Friend Society, preached this morning about the poor little canal boy. His text was from the 107th Psalm, 23rd verse, “They that go down into the sea in ships.” He has the queerest voice and stops off between his words. When we got home Anna said she would show us how he preached and she described what he said about a sailor in time of war. She said, “A ball came—and struck him there—another ball came—and struck him there—he raised his faithful sword—and went on—to victory—or death.” I expected Grandfather would reprove her, but he just smiled a queer sort of smile and Grandmother put her handkerchief up to her face, as she always does when she is amusedabout anything. I never heard her laugh out loud, but I suppose she likes funny things as well as anybody. She did just the same, this morning, when Grandfather asked Anna where the sun rose, and she said “over by Gen. Granger’s house and sets behind the Methodist church.” She said she saw it herself and should never forget it when any one asked her which was east or west. I think she makes up more things than any one I know of.
Sunday.—Rev. M. L. R. P. Thompson preached to-day. He used to be the minister of our church before Mr. Daggett came. Some people call him Rev. “Alphabet” Thompson, because he has so many letters in his name. He preached a very good sermon from the text, “Dearly beloved, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” I like to hear him preach, but not as well as I do Mr. Daggett. I suppose I am more used to him.
Thursday.—Edward Everett, of Boston, lectured in our church this evening. They had a platform built even with the tops of the pews, so he did not have to go up into the pulpit. Crowds and crowds came to hear him from all over everywhere. Grandmother let me go. They say he is the most eloquent speaker in the U. S., but I have heard Mr. Daggett when I thought he was just as good.
Sunday.—We went to church to-day and heard Rev. Mr. Stowe preach. His text was, “The poor ye have with you always and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.” I never knew any one who liked to go to church as much as Grandmother does. She says she “would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of our God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” They don’t have women doorkeepers, and I know she would not dwell a minute in a tent. Mr. Coburn is the doorkeeper in our church and he rings the bell every day at nine in the morning and at twelve and at nine in the evening, so Grandfather knows when it is time to cover up the fire in the fireplace and go to bed. I think if the President should come to call he would have to go home at nine o’clock. Grandfather’s motto is:
“Early to bed and early to riseMakes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
“Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
Tuesday.—Mrs. Greig and Miss Chapin called to see us to-day. Grandmother says that we can return the calls as she does not visit any more. We would like to, for we always enjoy dressing up and making calls. Anna and I received two black veils in a letter to-day from Aunt Caroline Dey. Just exactly what we had wanted for a long while. Uncle Edward sent us five dollars and Grandmother said we could buy just what we wanted, so we went down street to look at black silk mantillas. Wewent to Moore’s store and to Richardson’s and to Collier’s, but they asked ten, fifteen or twenty dollars for them, so Anna said she resolved from now, henceforth and forever not to spend her money for black silk mantillas.
Sunday.—Rev. Mr. Tousley preached to-day to the children and told us how many steps it took to be bad. I think he said lying was first, then disobedience to parents, breaking the Sabbath, swearing, stealing, drunkenness. I don’t remember just the order they came. It was very interesting, for he told lots of stories and we sang a great many times. I should think Eddy Tousley would be an awful good boy with his father in the house with him all the while, but probably he has to be away part of the time preaching to other children.
Sunday.—Uncle David Dudley Field and his daughter, Mrs. Brewer, of Stockbridge, Mass., are visiting us. Mrs. Brewer has a son, David Josiah, who is in Yale College. After he graduates he is going to be a lawyer and study in his Uncle David Dudley Field’s office in New York. He was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, where his father and mother were missionaries to the Greeks, in 1837. Our Uncle David preached for Mr. Daggett this afternoon. He is a very old man and left his sermon at home and I had to go back after it. His brother, Timothy, was the first minister in ourchurch, about fifty years ago. Grandmother says she came all the way from Connecticut with him on horseback on a pillion behind him. Rather a long ride, I should say. I heard her and Uncle David talking about their childhood and how they lived in Guilford, Conn., in a house that was built upon a rock. That was some time in the last century like the house that it tells about in the Bible that was built on a rock.
Sunday, August 10, 1854.—Rev. Mr. Daggett’s text this morning was, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Grandmother said she thought the sermon did not do us much good for she had to tell us several times this afternoon to stop laughing. Grandmother said we ought to be good Sundays if we want to go to heaven, for there it is one eternal Sabbath. Anna said she didn’t want to be an angel just yet and I don’t think there is the least danger of it, as far as I can judge. Grandmother said there was another verse, “If we do not have any pleasure on the Sabbath, or think any thoughts, we shall ride on the high places of the earth,” and Anna said she liked that better, for she would rather ride than do anything else, so we both promised to be good. Grandfather told us they used to be more strict about Sunday than they are now. Then he told us a story, how he had to go to Geneva one Saturday morning in the stage and expected to come back in the evening, but there was an accident, so the stage did not come till Sunday morning. Church had begun and he told the stage driver to leave him right there, so he went in late and the stage drove on. The next day he heard that he was to come before the minister, Rev. Mr. Johns, and the deacons and explain why he had broken the fourth commandment. When he got into the meeting Mr. Johns asked him what he had to say, and he explained about the accident and asked them to read a verse from the 8th chapter of John, before they made up their minds what to do to him. The verse was, “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.” Grandfather said they all smiled, and the minister said the meeting was out. Grandfather says that shows it is better to know plenty of Bible verses, for some time they may do you a great deal of good. We then recited the catechism and went to bed.
First Congregational Church
First Congregational Church
August 21.—Anna says that Alice Jewett feels very proud because she has a little baby brother. They have named him John Harvey Jewett after his father, and Alice says when he is bigger she will let Anna help her take him out to ride in his baby-carriage. I suppose they will throw away their dolls now.
Tuesday, September1.—I am sewing a sheet over and over for Grandmother and she puts a pin in to show me my stint, before I can go out to play.I am always glad when I get to it. I am making a sampler, too, and have all the capital letters worked and now will make the small ones. It is done in cross stitch on canvas with different color silks. I am going to work my name, too. I am also knitting a tippet on some wooden needles that Henry Carr made for me. Grandmother has raveled it out several times because I dropped stitches. It is rather tedious, but she says, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Some military soldiers went by the house to-day and played some beautiful music. Grandfather has a teter and swing for us in the back yard and we enjoy them usually, but to-night Anna slid off the teter board when she was on the ground and I was in the air and I came down sooner than I expected. There was a hand organ and monkey going by and she was in a hurry to get to the street to see it. She got there a good while before I did. The other day we were swinging and Grandmother called us in to dinner, but Anna said we could not go until we “let the old cat die.” Grandmother said it was more important that we should come when we are called.
October.—Grandmother’s name is Abigail, but she was always called “Nabby” at home. Some of the girls call me “Carrie,” but Grandmother prefers “Caroline.” She told us to-day, how when she was a little girl, down in Connecticut in 1794, she was on her way to school one morning and she sawan Indian coming and was so afraid, but did not dare run for fear he would chase her. So she thought of the word sago, which means “good morning,” and when she got up close to him she dropped a curtesy and said “Sago,” and he just went right along and never touched her at all. She says she hopes we will always be polite to every one, even to strangers.
November.—Abbie Clark’s father has been elected Governor and she is going to Albany to live, for a while. We all congratulated her when she came to school this morning, but I am sorry she is going away. We will write to each other every week. She wrote a prophecy and told the girls what they were going to be and said I should be mistress of the White House. I think it will happen, about the same time that Anna goes to be a missionary.
December.—There was a moonlight sleigh-ride of boys and girls last night, but Grandfather did not want us to go, but to-night he said he was going to take us to one himself. So after supper he told Mr. Piser to harness the horse to the cutter and bring it around to the front gate. Mr. Piser takes care of our horse and the Methodist Church. He lives in the basement. Grandfather sometimes calls him Shakespeare to us, but I don’t know why. He doesn’t look as though he wrote poetry. Grandfather said he was going to take us out to Mr.Waterman Powers’ in Farmington and he did. They were quite surprised to see us, but very glad and gave us apples and doughnuts and other good things. We saw Anne and Imogene and Morey and one little girl named Zimmie. They wanted us to stay all night, but Grandmother was expecting us. We got home safe about ten o’clock and had a very nice time. We never sat up so late before.