1860s

Santa Claus visits Milwaukee, 1867

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and I thought you might enjoy an expanded reprise of our 1867 Santa Claus story, originally posted December 25 and 30, 2017. In 2021 I combined the two original posts and incorporated some new illustrations and a few revisions of the text. Here it is again, for your holiday enjoyment. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Christmas in early America

For many years now, Christmas has been celebrated by Americans as an important religious and (increasingly secular) community holiday. Christians gather to worship and commemorate the birth of Jesus, and they and other Americans enjoy a break from work to gather with family and friends to feast and exchange gifts. But it was not always this way.

In many of the American colonies, Christmas was not observed as a religious or secular holiday. The seventeenth-century Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony considered Christmas to be non-biblical and pagan influenced. In Boston and other parts of New England any observance of Christmas was prohibited and, for a few years, actually illegal:

Penalty for Keeping Christmas, 1659

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Printed by order of the Legislature, edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M.D., Vol. IV, Part I, 1650-1660, online at mass.gov (accessed 21 Dec. 2021). Click to open larger image in new window.

Transcription:
For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such accounts as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the country.

Christmas was not generally accepted as a holiday in many parts of the United States until after the federal government made December 25 a national holiday in 1870.

On the other hand…

The Massachusetts Puritans may not have approved of “observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way,” but Christmas was “kept in other countries” and increasing numbers of immigrants from those countries to the United States—particularly from Victorian England, Catholic Europe, and the German Lands—celebrated the day in their new American homes with many of their accustomed religious observances and national traditions.

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Home to Thanksgiving

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I’m taking a few days off to spend time with family. But in the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d reprint a lightly revised version of our now-annual Thanksgiving post, to share with you a few vintage recipes and a nice Currier & Ives lithograph from the period.1

Thanksgiving, 1867

Durrie, George H. and John Schutler, Home to Thanksgiving, ca. 1867, New York, Currier & Ives. National Gallery of Art, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Public Domain. Click to to open larger image in a new window.

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Autumn chores: Husking

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I’m behind in my writing. Sorry about that. My Clark House history research continues “behind the scenes,” but I’ve been busy with typical fall chores around the house and garden, and that’s kept me from writing, proofreading, and annotating fresh blog posts.

Anyway, Thanksgiving is almost here, so look for my annual holiday post (with historic recipes!) later this week. And in the meantime, let’s reflect on how thankful we should be that we don’t have to process a barn full of harvested corn by hand anymore…

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Labor Day – a photo essay

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 3 Comments

Even thought it’s Labor Day, the holiday celebrating the working men and women of our nation, I’ll be at work, back at our local mercantile establishment. You know, a store kind of like this one, stocked with just about anything you need for modern living:

I don’t have the day off, and won’t be marching in a parade, but I’d still like to honor the holiday and salute the American worker, past and present. With that in mind, let’s revisit some of the nineteenth-century occupations we’ve talked about previously at Clark House Historian, highlighting a few of the many skills, trades, and occupations common during the Clark House era.

Since it is a holiday, I’m not going to add much commentary today. Enjoy the photos, and click the links to visit the original CHH posts with lots more information about the different skills and jobs, and for full image credits.

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School supplies…and more, 1850

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

Almost three weeks remain until Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, and already many Wisconsin families are preparing for the new school year. “Back to School” promotions and special merchandise can be found in many local, chain, and online retailers. The history of “Back to School” as a marketing theme in the U.S. is obscure, but from what I’ve observed, it seems very much a post-World War II phenomenon.

With our current the focus on three-ring binders, zippered pencil cases, and boxes of 64 Crayolas (with the built-in sharpener!), have you ever wondered what kind of school or office supplies might have been necessary or useful for Jonathan and Mary Clark, their children, and their neighbors? Just for fun, here are just two of the many informative advertisements from the columns of the local papers, in this case the [Milwaukee] Daily Free Democrat, November 2, 1850, page 4:

Your local book & stationery shop

Milwaukee book & stationery retailer Rood & Whittemore had a fine selection of supplies for the scholar, letter writer, or professional man or woman of 1850:

Something for everyone, including the “country traders” and teachers that often served as buyers and distributors of school textbooks for their rural areas. For their efforts, the traders and teachers received “liberal terms,” presumably some sort of discount (for cash accounts, of course), from Rood & Whittemore.

And as you might expect, even from its earliest days Milwaukee was not a one-store town. In the words of the immortal Ron Popiel…

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At my desk, writing…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. My week began with several days devoted to an unexpected and very stressful issue that has now been resolved (or, at least, much improved) and I am researching and writing once again.

I’ll have more history for you here presently, and I have a brief but interesting piece coming up shortly in the next Jonathan Clark House newsletter. What’s that about? Let’s just say that something in today’s portrait of a rather posh Philadelphia silversmith is more relevant to the Clarks’ era—and the Jonathan Clark House Museum collection—than you might think.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!

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Bad Handwriting: not just a problem from the past

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

I hope you enjoyed Monday’s post Help the Historian — what’s Nellie’s last name? and that you’re now working on your best guess for Nellie’s almost-illegible surname.

A historical handwriting puzzle like this is fun when the stakes are low and you don’t have any pressure to get the job done quickly. But did you know that there are several hundred federal employees in Salt Lake City who decipher thousands and thousands of bad or damaged printed and handwritten addresses every day? Let’s let YouTube’s excellent experience-it-yourself man, Tom Scott, show us how it’s done:

How the U.S. Postal Service reads terrible handwriting

It’s an amazing system, when you think of it. To begin with, the speed and accuracy of optical character recognition (OCR) technology has improved dramatically over the years. But when the writing is really bad, or smudged? Then the mail is viewed by the men and women of the USPS Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City process, and they read and key in 1.2 billion (that’s billion with a B) images of mail every year. My hat’s off to the USPS employees that can do this fast-paced detective work so efficiently, day after day. Meanwhile, how about you and your deciphering skills?

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Help the Historian — what’s Nellie’s last name?

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 4 Comments

Today was supposed to be a lavishly illustrated “Monday: Map Day!” post, to accompany our recent posts on the Bonniwell family’s roots in Chatham, Kent, England. But, of course, I ran into some interesting—although pretty much off-topic and confusing—Bonniwell documents. These records added a previously unknown1 second marriage to the story of early Mequon pioneer, Jonathan Clark House neighbor, and Washington/Ozaukee county mover-and-shaker William T. Bonniwell.

It’s a complicated story. A second marriage for him, a second marriage for her, and there is a seven-year-old child named Nellie (of somewhat obscure parentage) living with them. So, of course, I dropped what I was doing and dug in to try and solve these new mysteries. I’m now close to understanding what happened with W. T. Bonniwell’s short-lived second marriage, but I have a problem.

Cn u rd ths?

Can you read this?

As always, click the images to open higher-resolution versions of each.

I read a lot of handwritten documents, mostly from about 1600 to the present day. I’m pretty good at deciphering most English and German writing styles from those years, but every now and then I’m stumped.

This is an 1870 document in the hand of young Nellie’s trustee, one Jedd P. C. Cottrill (sp?), acknowledging the receipt of her share of the estate of her deceased foster father, Nelson Webster. Nellie’s name is inside the red rectangle: Nellie J. [hmm?]. What do you think Nellie’s surname is supposed to be? Is the first letter an F or a T or something else? And after that? Is it ?urck, ?urch, ?inck, ?inch? I’m leaning toward Finch or, maybe, Finck. But I’m not sure. Perhaps if we compared other examples of Nellie’s surname from the same probate file…

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