Hannah Elida Baldwin (pt1) The Early Years

Hannah at age 27

St. George, New Brunswick, Canada

     Hannah Elida Baldwin was Born 4 March 1820 in the town of St. George in what later became New Brunswick, Canada[1][2]. She was the daughter of George Baldwin and Elizabeth Hansen Baldwin. Hannah’s only full sibling was Mary Elizabeth, born three years before Hannah. Unfortunately Hannah’s elder sister Mary Elizabeth Baldwin died at the age of three in 1821. The death of Hannah's Father left her mother a widow with an infant daughter to raise. Later that same year, the widow Baldwin married Nathan Leavitt on Christmas Eve 1821 and they relocated their blended family to Clinton, Maine, about 135 miles east of St. George, Canada.

 Clinton, Kennebec, Maine

     The town of Clinton was very small. In a special state census in 1837 the census showed 25 families and a population of 122[3]. By 1890 it had grown to a population of 1518[4]. Hannah's mother and step father had 12 children together so Hannah had a lot of half-siblings. Clinton is where Hannah spent her childhood. From letters she wrote to her parents later in life it is obvious that she was close to some of her half-siblings: Sarah Ann Maria Leavitt(2 yrs younger), William Hansen Leavitt(5 yrs younger) and Mary Elizabeth Leavitt(7 yrs younger) are mentioned quite often in these letters[5]. The town of Clinton is at a bend in the Sebasticook river. I can imagine time spent playing by the river. I can also imagine that life was hard so there was always work to do. With so many siblings at home it must have been hard. From the biography of Hannah's husband, Jesse Wentworth Crosby, we have the following statement "Hannah's mother and Nathan Leavitt had a large family and living was difficult. It became necessary for Hannah and her half-sister, Elizabeth, to seek employment."[6] This is the only indication I have been able to find about Hannah's childhood.

 Lowell, Middlesex, Massachusetts

     Hannah went to work as a mill girl in Lowell Massachusetts which was 165 miles southwest of Clinton. Hannah's half-sister Sarah Ann went to work at Lowell as early as 1841[7], at 19 years of age. Hannah and Elizabeth went later on and the exact time is not known. The first evidence that Hannah was in Lowell is a note that she was on the board of the Lowell Latter Day Saint Benevolent Sewing Society on July 17, 1844 [8], presumably she had been in Lowell for a while.
     The reason that Hannah went to Lowell was to work in the cotton mills there. The town of Lowell was founded at the confluence of the Merrimack and Concord rivers. This was done so that the mills to be built would have access to the water to run the equipment. From the pictures below it can be seen how the mills were right on the river banks.

Lowell Mills in 1910[9]

Lowell Mills in 2010[10]

     To get an understanding of why young women would go to Lowell Massachusetts to work as a mill girl I am including an excerpt  from a history of the Lowell Mill Girls written by Harriett Robinson who was a mill girl in Lowell:

     "In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all over the country of the new factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of work­people; stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and gave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farm­houses .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and men were employed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories."
     "At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest among the employments of women. In England and in France, particularly, great injustice had been done to her real character. She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy her purity and self­respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill­girls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation...."
     "The early mill­girls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twenty­five. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinning­frames, and replaced them with empty ones.... The working hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one half­hour each, for breakfast and dinner."[11]

Lowell mill girl from the mid 1800s[12]

     The owners of the mills made strict regulations that required the young women to attend church on Sunday and to live in their boarding houses[12] so that they would be protected. Hannah and her step sisters Elizabeth and Sarah boarded together while working at the mills. The days were long as evidenced by the bell schedule that ran their lives. "The operatives work thirteen hours a day in the summer time, and from daylight to dark in the winter. At half past four in the morning the factory bell rings, and at five the girls must be in the mills.... At seven the girls are allowed thirty minutes for breakfast, and at noon thirty minutes more for dinner."[13] The bell schedule shown below was the schedule after hours were reduced from 12 or 13 hour days to 11 hour days.

A Segment of a Bell Schedule for the Lowell Mills at Lowell Massachusetts

One description of conditions at the mill:

Each room usually had 80 women working at machines, with two male overseers managing the operation. The noise of the machines was described by one worker as "something frightful and infernal," and although the rooms were hot, windows were often kept closed during the summer so that conditions for thread work remained optimal. The air, meanwhile, was filled with particles of thread and cloth.[14]

Conversion to Mormonism

     It is believed that Hannah and her half-sisters heard the Mormon Missionaries preach in Lowell and were converted and baptized. There was a branch of the church in Lowell and Hannah's future husband was serving a mission in the East and may have been the one to baptize her. Hannah was faithful in the church and was made a board member of the Lowell LDS Benevolent Sewing Society when it was organized on 17 Jul 1844.This society was formed after the manner of the Relief Society that was formed in 1842 in Nauvoo. The Relief Society was not instituted throughout the church until later but in two branches of the church in Massachusetts, Societies of women were formed to do charitable work.[15] Hannah stayed faithful during the William Smith and Samuel Brannan affair that tore up the branches in Massachusetts. This occurred in 1844 and 1845 when Polygamy was being preached in Nauvoo but not in the East which caused alot of members to leave the church. Polygamy eventually led to Hannah's half-sister Sarah leaving the church.
     Jesse Wentworth Crosby arrived in Lowell Massachusetts in December 1st 1844. He stayed the winter. It was during this time that Jesse courted Hannah and on March 29th of 1845 Jesse and Hannah left for Nauvoo. They would be married in Nauvoo on the 23rd of November 1845. Hannah would be the only member of her family to go west. She would later go back and visit her parents and according to one history Hannah's parents thought that she had thrown her life away.[16]

Where Hannah Elida Baldwin Lived in her early years

Here are pictures of Hannah Elida during her later years. Hannah's Time in Nauvoo, Trek west and her life in Utah will be covered in Part 2.

Hannah in her 30s or 40s

Hanna in her 80s

Hannah in her 60s

Sources
1 - Hannah's death certificate shows a birthplace of Maine, however, All histories that I have found show St. George, New Brunswick, Canada.
2 - Canada wasn't created until 1 Jul 1867, The province of New Brunswick wasn't created until 1 Jul 1867.
3 -  1837 Census of Clinton Gore, Maine (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~meandrhs/census/maine/clinton/gore/1837.html)
4 - Mitchell, H. E., The Town Register: Clinton, Benton and Fairfield, 1909 (Augusta, Me.: Mitchell Pub. Co., 1909)
5 - Crosby, Samuel W. Jesse Wentworth Crosby Mormon Preacher - Pioneer - Man of God. Salt Lake City: Hiller Industries, 1977. 45-47.
6 - Crosby, Samuel W. Jesse Wentworth Crosby Mormon Preacher - Pioneer - Man of God. Salt Lake City: Hiller Industries, 1977. 43. Print.(Note that no source is provided for this statement but other histories also indicate the same living condition)
7 - Lowell Institute for Savings Bank Records, 1841-1842, http://library.uml.edu/clh/LIS/LIS41-42.htm (accessed August 5, 2012).
8 - "MEMBERS & MISSIONARIES OF THE LOWELL, MASS. BRANCH OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, 1835-1860" Compiled by Martha Mayo & Connell O'Donovan. Retrieved from http://connellodonovan.com/lowell_women.html on 5 Aug 2012.
9 - http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/sia/31.1/malone.html (accessed on 5 Aug 2012)
10 - http://www.greatrealtyusa.com/realtors/MA/Lowell.htm (accessed on 5 Aug 2012)
11 - Robinson, Harriet H. "Early Factory Labor in New England," in Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Fourteenth Annual Report (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1883), pp. 380­82, 387­88, 391­92. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robinson-lowell.asp (accessed on 5 Aug 2012)
12 - Boott Cotton Mills Regulations poster http://www.masshist.org/objects/2012march.php (access August 5, 2012)
13 -  "A Description of Factory Life by an Associationist" Reprinted in the voice of Industry from Harbinger 1846, http://library.uml.edu/clh/All/as1.htm (accessed 5 Aug 2012)
14 - "A Description of Factory Life by an Associationist in 1846". Online at the Illinois Labor History Society. Retrieved on August 27, 2007.
15 - Derr, Jill M. Cannon, Janath R. and Beecher, Maureen U. Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992. 63. Print
16 - Stalker, Mary K.C. Hannah Elida Baldwin Crosby: Biographical Sletch.