Because I’ll be spending Valentine’s Day in 1820, I thought I’d try to replicate this token. News on how it turned out later… I don’t feel clever enough to write my own verse, but here is the Rhode Island example transcribed.
My love is true to none but you My heart expires for your sake And if you don’t me pity show My true and tender heart will brake
Here a question you will find A sweet question you will find Sweet is the question mark it well Heart upon heart and so farewell
My Dearest dear and Blest Devine I’ve pictured here your Heart and mine But Cupid with his fatal dart Has deeply wounded my poor heart
There between us sat a Cross Which makes me to Lament my loss But I am in hope when the Cross is hone That both our hearts will be in one
My heart is fix’t no more to Range I like my Choice to well to Change Oh that my Heart to yours could meet Then all my joys would be compleast If you take this in disdain Pray send it back from Whence it Came L M
Hard to say which, but I am ill at ease and dissatisfied with my costuming. You might even call it bratty. But I don’t wanna be like Bridget Connor!
It started the week of the Stamp Act protest, when I felt quite tired of being the shabby, unrefined woman of the regiment and street vendor, and wanted a nice cozy shop like the milliner had. I was also looking forward to being a housekeeper again, and several weeks of moving boxes and volumes with red rot at work had me feeling generally filthy and unappreciated. Bratty.
When in doubt, sew. A new dress can’t help but cheer you up, right?
Well… sort of…
Last Thursday, we did a reprise of the Williams family letters program at the Newport Historical Society. The Williams family were Quakers, and the letters were from the early part of the 19th century, so for the program in March, I made a green silk cross-front gown based on the Quaker gown in the back of Costume in Detail. (Check out the schematic on the 19thus.come page; I didn’t see this until I was mostly done with the dress, but thank goodness I got it right!)
But it’s September, and Thursday was expected to be quite warm, so I salved my bureaucratic wounds in the $1.99 loft at the local mill store, and made a new Quaker gown, also suitable for a maid.
I ask you! Even though it’s my very own pattern based on sketches of original drawings, even though it fits, even though it cost $10, even though every seam is overcast and the whole thing is made with period correct stitches, it still fails to make me happy and cheerful and delighted.
This brattiness has resulted in a reappraisal of my approach– and a trip to Sewfisticated in Framingham. What did I buy there? Yards and yards of pink taffeta? Gold taffeta? Blue taffeta?
No.
Because they didn’t have the right colors in the right weave– too slubby– or in enough yardage. Brace yourselves: I bought brown.
Many thanks to Sew 18th Century for taking the photos!
It appears I do not learn from my mistakes. When I think, “Gee, I’d like a pretty dress,” I end up buying fabric based on the texture as much as the color, and I have to tell you, that brown taffeta has the most wonderful l hand and sheen, and I will look much more like a Copley portrait than I ever have before, so that’s something.
It seems I have created a set of mental rules for myself, a mission, if you will, for the historic clothing I sew and the roles I take on, and I only play within those rules.
Last Saturday, we stepped back in time to 1765 in Newport. I know: Newport always seems to be in a different time than gritty Providence, but this trip was truly different.
On the Colony House steps
We were headed across the Bay for a Stamp Act Protest (no rioting, per police request). In this effort, we joined a large group of recruits from New England and even beyond, to fill Washington Square and other sites in the city.
Preparing the ‘sails’ for stitching. I never really noticed the cars till I saw the photos!
Stationed around the square were sailors mending or making a sail*, an apprentice-less printer, a sleepy apprentice boy, a tailor and his journeyman, a milliner, and leading citizens, one of whom was kind enough to read the newspaper to the apple seller, who wonders what has become of her son.
You must be very careful indeed around the sailors!
Up the street, some very fine ladies were having tea. Their refinement was evident in their appearance and dress, as well as in the elegant setting of their tables. They wanted none of my apples, as they had imported citrus fruits, far better than the apples the island’s trees produce. (Wasted on tea, truly: what one wants to do with a lemon is to find some rum and make a punch.)
The Ladies’ TeaSeated for teaMr Robinson marches forth
The news was very bad, and tempers flared in the square. Mistress Ellery told me that dinner parties had become impossible to hold: parties nearly come to blows over discussions of taxes, customs, stamps, and the oppressive policies of Mr Robinson, who insists on enforcing the very letter and penny of the law. (He was quite insulting on the quality of my apples, indeed, spitting one upon me even as he continued to eat it!)
The apprentice boy had charge of the effigy; the tailor sewed on.
As the afternoon wore on, the debate grew more intense and the crowd more heated. And effigy of Mr Howard was made, paraded, and hung, and then the crowd of protesters dispersed to the White Horse Tavern.
Fortified!
Tensions seemed to dissipate, though when the runner came, the protesters– now fortified with ale, porter and cider–ran down the street to “plunder” Mr Howard’s house, played here by the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House.
Ignoring the mistress of the house, protesters dashed to the back.
Although the mistress of the house tried to reason with them, the crowd would not be dissuaded, convinced of their mission (and perhaps more fortified than you would expect after just one glass). They carried their loot to the front of the Colony House, and heaped it up, glorying in their success.
The goods!More goods!
In the end, the house was not looted, tensions were dissipated, and the protesters dispersed into the afternoon. We were well-rewarded with cheese and ale at the Colony House, and enjoyed discussing the events of 1765 and 2014 with the public and Newport Historical Society staff members.
*Yes, Virginia, they do look like tents. That’s because they are tents. Someday, Light Infantry soldiers will sleep beneath that canvas. But for now, keep stitching!
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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