Clarinda died just 4 years after Edna was born, at the age of 34 in 1849, when Abby was only 10 years old. Just under a year later, James married Harriett (Condon, 1826-1910) and she shows up with the family in the 1850 census. Although her maiden name was Condon, I can’t find a connection to Abby’s married family, even after going back in the Condon family tree from a few generations.

Can you imagine being 23 years old, marrying a widower, and inheriting his 5 living children, the eldest of which is only 7 years younger than you!?!

James and Harriet continue to live in town for the rest of their lives. James died in 1890 and is buried in the Grindle-Wight Cemetery in South Penobscot. In 1900, Harriet was listed in Brooksville at the age of 72 as a Capitalist, meaning she is an investor. I wonder what she was investing in? In Abby’s business ventures perhaps? In the diary, Abby does talk about a woman named Harriet helping around the house and perhaps this is who she is referencing. She lived another 20 years after James died, dying herself in 1910.

Abby married Benjamin Condon (1835-1909) in March of 1860 when she was 20. He was a sailor, who would rise through the ranks to be called a “Master Mariner” in 1870. After that, he must have decided that a life at sea was not for him because in 1880 and 1900, he is listed as a farmer. Benjamin and Abby had two children- Eliza (1863-1886) and Samuel Brainard (1876-1965), but when we meet Abby in 1899, Brainard is her only surviving child. Lida, who had married Walter Creamer (1859-1932) at some point (I can’t find any marriage records), died at the age of 22 from “Bright’s Disease,” an anachronistic way of describing kidney disease. 

While Benjamin is farming, Abby sets about creating her own business empire. As she was getting married and starting her family, the country was digging itself out of the aftermath of the Civil War. Many young men had died and the economy was recovering; prices for goods were high and manufacturing had slowed. It was into this new world that Abby made her business debut. I can’t find exact dates, but sometime around 1864, Abby started a successful knitting factory in South Penobscot, and was described as “bright, ambitious, and persevering” and a “pioneer of mitten knitting” according to the Penobscot website. In the beginning, she purchased 50 pounds of yarn from Boston and then paid women in her area $0.25 per pair of knit mittens. As her business grew, she would end up employing up to 1,500 knitters to work in their own homes in towns spread out over the area, shipping tons of yarn directly to them. At one point around 1880, she manufactured “15,000 dozen mittens” and paid the steamboat company the largest freight bill along the Boston-Bangor route to date. 

In 1882, Abby bought four hand operated Lamb Knitting Machines to enhance her business. By 1900, she owned 80 machines and, according to her obituary, she owned 150 at the time of her death. This business was pioneering not only because Abby was a woman, but also because she employed women and allowed them to make a living while not having to leave their homes. Abby is celebrated and remembered in Penobscot for her knitting business to this day.

Brainard married Grace Edna (Allen, 1874-1970) in March of 1893. He was all of 16 and Grace was 19. Just 6 months later, their son, Guy Berwyn (1893-1983) was born (gasp!). In 1900, he, Grace, Abby, Benjamin, and Guy were living together. Benjamin is listed as a farmer, while both Abby and Brainard are listed as “Manufacturer.” At this point, she and Brainard are working at the general store in Penobscot and “the shop” features heavily in the diary, with Grace and others putting time in running the place as well. 

There are other characters that deserve explanations too, including Blanche and other members of the Condon and Grindle families. Take a look at Abby’s People page for more on them all.

That brings us to the opening of the diary- January 1st, 1899!

While she and Carl seem busy with friends visiting, social events, church, and outdoor activities, Abby is bored and lonely. She comments often about the letters that she is receiving from home, about her loneliness, and about how she doesn’t sleep well.  

January 23

Rainstorm today. Dull and lonesome.

January 24

Bright sun morning but clouded and rained nearly all day. No letters today. Very lonesome.

They have visitors for dinner often, they travel to nearby cities to sightsee and buy goods for the shop, Abby bakes and sews, and they dine at fancy hotels, but I don’t think that the idle life of a winter in Florida agrees with her. Later, after she returns home and is back to work, she never mentions being lonesome, only uses the word “dull” to refer to the weather, and never comments on a lack of sleep. For a woman that has worked hard her whole life, this life of leisure does not suit her. Carl seems to be having fun though- he fishes, travels, and goes to social events. His wife had died of tuberculosis in 1896, so perhaps this trip was to cheer him up? It doesn’t seem like something that Abby was excited about at least.

This is how the diary continues through February, with Abby commenting on the weather, how many letters she received from home, and about the callers she had. It seems that she might be counting the days until her return home because on March 1st, she notes that she is glad for the new month:

March 1

Mar is here. Glad am I. Fine warm day.

On March 7th, they start the journey home. Abby doesn’t make this trip as easily as the first; she is “sick and tired” by the second day when they arrive in Jacksonville and is still feeling ill when they reach Washington on March 9th. Fortunately, they have a friend’s home to stop in for a few days. She stayed there to recover, which she did quickly, and even got a little sightseeing in. They left for New York on March 17th and rested there again for two days. On March 20th, they left for Boston and spent some days with “Emma” in Plymouth. (I’m not sure who this Emma is… there are Emma’s that Abby is related to, but they all live in Maine. Without a last name, it is hard to say who this is).

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that Abby does have a husband, Benjamin! I only found one direct reference to him by name in the whole diary. It takes until June 30th for her to reference “Ben” when he and Brainard are fixing the barn. Sometimes, she uses the abbreviation “B” instead of a person’s name, but from the context, I always think that she means Brainard. I read a local source about Abby that included interviews with people from the town (not much information to cite the source, so take it for what you will), and a “senior citizen” said, “Funny, I never thought of her as having a husband.” I guess I’m not the only one that has noticed his absence from her life…

Anyway, as we head into summer, everyone is still busy in the shop and on the farm. They sell pickles and strawberries and Abby seems to grow many of the vegetables for the house. She remarks on her potatoes, peas, sweet corn, squash, tomatoes, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and greens growing. She also plants geraniums, crocuses, and dahlias. They also harvest hay, seem to keep a cow or two for milking, and raise turkeys and chickens. It is an abnormally warm and dry year and Abby is always concerned about rain. Show me a farmer that isn’t constantly talking about rain!

As I said, the family, including Abby, travel to the nearby towns constantly “for freight,” including Blue Hill, Brooksvilee, and Bucksport. This freight was for the general store and for the knitting business. Abby and her family brought in goods to sell at the store and she was buying yarn and selling completed mittens along shipping lines in the northeast. For example, on June 7th, Abby goes to Castine and returns home at 2am when it is “dark as pitch.” She is 60 years old, after all, and from the stories I have read, seems to be financially secure having done very well from her businesses. Clearly, though, she enjoys her work and even mentions working on “mitts” herself.

Throughout the diary, Abby mentioned some of the important events of the year, usually on the day that they happened. I think this is interesting for a few reasons… it speaks to her character as someone interested and engaged with the world around her (not all Diary Writers comment about news events, in my experience) and it gives us an insight into what it was like to live through the year 1899. First, on their way home from Florida while they are in New York for a few days, Abby remarked about the Windsor Hotel burning down in Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day. While people were gathered to watch the holiday parade, a match caught the curtains on fire in one of the rooms. It only took 90 minutes and somewhere around 90 people died. Then in August, there was an accident in Bar Harbor, Maine, when the gangplank to a ferry gave way. Twenty people died and 200 people fell into the water. Lastly, on the same day as the play at the Hall that Abby and her family had been working so hard on, she mentioned the World Heavyweight Championship between James Jeffries and Tom Sharkey. It took place on November 3rd, 1899, on Coney Island. This seems like a strange thing for an older religious woman to mention (I mean, who am I to judge?), but I also have the “Third Writer Theory” that I talk more about below too. This fight was a famously tough fight that lasted 25 rounds before Jeffries won and it was captured on film. This was actually a great cinematic achievement for the time because of the technology used and the length of the film. 

In Late October, Abby does something that many Diary Writers do- she starts to be less consistent in her daily writing. There are more blank entries and she even comments on November 9th that the diary was lost for a while and “many things omitted.” It is now that her grandson Guy’s writing starts to make an appearance. From what I can tell, he came across the diary years after Abby had originally had it and starts to fill in the blank entries with his own. It’s very sweet to see Abby’s fine (and often illegible) writing next to Guy’s 10-year-old boy writing.

Guy goes on to attend college at the University of Maine; he majored in History and Economics and received an MBA. I found his draft papers for WWI; he was in school in 1916, and he is listed in the US Adjutant General Military Records as reporting between 1917-1919. In April of 1917, he enrolled as a seaman 1st class in the Navy Reserve and then transferred to Naval Aviation Detachment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in June of 1918, then to a Naval Air Station in NY in September, promoted to Chief Quartermaster, and released from duty in November of 1918. Apparently, he liked NY because by 1930 he is in The Bronx, where he is listed as a Purchasing Agent for a hospital. It seems that he worked in this profession in New York for a long time after- On his draft papers from WWII, he is listed as living in Hudson, NY, and I also have him in New Rochelle, NY, in 1952 listed as purchasing agent. As far as I can tell, he never married. Guy made his way back to Maine between 1952 and his death in November 1983, where he lived in the impressive house that Abby built. He died in Penobscot and is buried in Blue Hill Cemetery, along with Brainard and Grace. 

When I began to research Abby’s diary, I discovered her continued notoriety in Penobscot. Fortunately, the tiny town has a Historical Society and they have a Facebook page. I reached out to them to ask if they had any information about Abby or her family and told them that I had a diary of her’s. The Facebook Messenger note that I got back read, “OMG, how did you come by that piece of history?” After explaining The Her Diary Project to the lovely and helpful woman named Sylvia from the Penobscot Historical Society, she asked if I might share a copy of the diary with them. Happily, I agreed to donate the diary to them after my research was finished. Indeed, Abby continues to be a bit of a celebrity in Penobscot- Sylvia sent me some information included here and informed me that they have one of Abby’s original knitting machines on display. School children also continue to learn about Abby in school- see a cute story here. The diary is now owned by the Historical Society and I’m so happy that it has found its way home safely.