Hannah Callender, Excerpt from Diary Entry, February 1758

Callender started a diary in 1758 when she was twenty-one years old. In it she recorded details of her intense social life, with daily visits and travels with friends and family, and of her extensive reading. She wrote about family conflicts and about when and how to marry—and with whom. When she did marry, it was to Samuel Sansom, a young man from another wealthy Quaker family who was not, in other ways, a good match for the spirited Callender. Her ambivalence about their marriage is plain in much of what she wrote in the diary, but also in the difference between the kinds of events she related before marriage, when her social life seemed a lovely whirl, and after, when she was more reserved. The diary entries that follow are from February 1758, when Callender was still single.

The diary shows her doing needlework, what she described as working “at my piece,” attending Quaker meetings for worship, talking with family and friends, reading and reflecting on her young life and the people in it. In the next month she would travel, as she often did, to Burlington, New Jersey, where her mother’s extended family lived.

Callender’s is one of the few, and among the very fullest, surviving diaries of an eighteenth-century woman. When historical societies were being organized in the nineteenth century, women’s writing was not seen as critical to preserve. Families may have kept the materials of the ancestors, and in fact Callender’s family did, but even then might not have appreciated the significance future historians would attach to the mundane details that such a diary offered. In 1888 one of Callender’s male descendants published extracts of her diary, but mostly excerpts that focused on politics, war, or the elite families whose genealogies he was interested in. The very regular accounting Callender made of her day seemed to him “mostly personal” and not of “general interest.”

Now historians are able to read such a diary and to appreciate within the genre of the daily recordation the details that add up to some very useful and important information about how women lived—and how they described how they lived. You must read carefully, taking note of the different topics covered: reading, faith, sociability, and gender relations.

[February 1, 1758]

  1. Mo 4 Morn: at Work, afternoon Polly Shoot hear, this day some disagreable accidents happened in a branch of the Smith family that I much respect. Learn to bear all things with acqueasence. says some auther. evening writeing Copy of a letter from Ireland giving an account of the Death of Molly Peasely Who as she lived a Christian life, departed in a well grounded expectation of the Crown of Christian warfare, Life eternal.1
  1. at Work at my piece.
  2. at Work at my peice, evening at Work, wrote to P Morris.
  3. at Work at my peice. an agreable surprise in the sight of Polly M. evening at Warners translateing l’Economie de la Vie Humaine.2

 

  1. Day Morn: just now gone, by James Hambleton for New York thence to England. at meeting H Williams spoke. P Morris dined with me. afternoon at meeting, HW. and DT spoke, with Nancy Gibson at her Mamme’s, talk on various branches of female folly, evening at meeting HW. Spoke, A Widdow Feild spoke
  2. at Work at my peice, evening at Beckys, read in the first mag: that S—h3 began to show himself in.
  3. morn: at meeting, it being youths meeting, SM, J Tasker, DS, WB. spoke, went home with AP, we spent the afternoon pleasently, evening at Catys, PH there, Conversation, work and book, an agreable evening
  4. at Work at my peice, and now evening writeing—and so my days pass swift as a weavers shuttle,4 our Time (when truly understood)

                Is the most precious earthly good.5

  5. Morn: at Work at my peice, apres midi:6 Betsey Sandwith hear, drawing some things for me, evening translateing. she is a girl of good sense: on the choice of Company, in all ages, there has been great stress laid, I think some auther says: something like this, on the choice of thy company depends thy good or bad conduct in life.
  6. All day at Work at my peice, evening reading to Daddy & Mamme some of S: Crisps sermons,7 I think them very good ones,
  7. Morn: at Work at my peice, afternoon the same, wrote to Sally, evening at Warners very pleasent a good many of the family there.

 

  1. Day Morn: at home on account of family: A beautiful day: in thy mercy give us hearts to deserve thy manifold favours.—afternoon at meeting, evening at meeting DS prayed, JT spoke.
  2. at Work at my piece.
  3. at Work at my peice. Sally Morris hear at dinner. a worthy woman:
  4. at Work at my peice.
  5. at Work at my peice.
  6. Ironing.
  7. Morn: wrote to Sally, at work, afternoon work, evening read to mam.

 

  1. Day Morn: at home, afternoon at meeting, Thomas Bullard spoke, When the Judgements of the Lord are in the Earth, the inhabitents thereof learn Righteousness,8 went to Catys, company there, conversation on politicks, evening at meeting, T B., HW., —Easter, and D Stanton spoke, the latter desired us on a very good manner, to think of mortality, none being; to there knowledge, exempt from the sudden stroke of it:
  2. Morn: at Work with my Mamme. afternoon at Work at my peice.
  3. Morn: a letter from Sally, great is the joy, or innate satisfaction in hearing from a friend one loves. went to meeting DS., ME., HH., & James Tasker spoke, all in an extraordinary manner, James, gave a sermon, the Truth & sentiments, of which I hope, the curtain of my last hour may be drawn up by: went to the interment of an honest man, our neighbour at point[-no-point]: every honest man is a loss to the community; where of he is: afternoon, Dr Evans hear, talking of england, a place for which I seem to feel a sort of filial reverance: my mother Country! evening at Caty’s, none but she and I, “the Conversation of a friend brightens the eyes” a pretty metaphor, intimateing that when the heart is glad it cant but brighten the countenance of the person.
  4. Morn: at Work, afternoon agreable, with Molly Foulk & her Daughter. ‘tis in part as the saying is: education makes the man, or in the younger years however, it is in the power of parents to do a great deal for their childrens benifit when older. see Ned Phisick wished him joy ie Ab: Sing.
  5. Morn: received a letter from Betsey, some thoughts of going to B—n. poor girl I wish it was, more than it is, in my power to console her! at meeting, B T., H H., DS., H W., & Easter spoke. afternoon at Sally Stanton’s. from that house, has dropt one of my youthful Acquaintance[.] evening, at Anna Poles, Hannah Hudson there; too much of the family failing, a certain stifness, or form, not agreable9 when it enters, either, in company or conversation.
  6. Morn: at Work, afternoon, A. James hear, some men take great liberty in laughing at the Women, however, not being clear of failings themselves, and in a general way, we getting the right side of them; make me think of an old saying “let them laugh that Wins.”
  7. morn: at Work at my peice, afternoon at Becky’s, E—d P—k there, talk of dispariety of years, in relation to marriage, such as 25 to 40, unanimus 15 too much: it was occasioned by the proposeals of marriage made yesterday between B.S. & SB.10

 

  1. Day Morn: at meeting, DS. and BT. spoke. afternoon, at meeting H W.—sharp evening at: meeting, DS. spoke and prayed for our gracious King George.
  2. Morn: at work at my peice, see the disconsolate Widdow of melchor, afternoon Neighbour Stiles & Polly hear,
  3. Morn: at Work at my peice, read in Pope’s Letters,11 afternoon, went to Sam Noble’s, the Barracks a fine Building, raised by Loyal Subjects. yet cant help wishing there had never been occasion for them, thinking it a most glorious and precious Proclamation, given at the comeing of the greatest Prince on earth, “glory to God on high, peace on earth and good will towards all men.”12

Source: Material reprinted from The Diary of Hannah Callender Sansom: Sense and Sensibility in the Age of the American Revolution, by Susan E. Klepp and Karin Wulf. Copyright © 2010 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press.

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