Everyday Life at
Stoneleigh & Oakwell
Who were the people behind the scenes, doing the work in the homes, on the farm, and in the
gardens? Who was answering the phone calls from the Teahouse and delivering refreshments? The annual census gives us clues about some of the people who worked in this place and also called it home.
Census data from 1850-1930 tells us most of the staff were immigrants from Ireland, Sweden, France, Scotland, England, Germany, Poland, and Canada. A few were born in the US (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Tennessee). They were laborers, farmhands, gardeners, cooks, waitresses, parlor maids, chambermaids, coachmen, nurses. They ranged in age from 15 to 52, with names like Mary, John, Louise, David, Lillian, Anna, Alfred, Agnes, and Vera.
Most of these people appear on a census, and then recede into anonymity, but there are a few whose stories can teach us about the history of our country and beyond.
There’s Francis Canning, born in England, and Alexander MacLeod, born in Scotland, who lived with their families in Stoneleigh’s charming Superintendent’s Cottage. They built distinguished careers stewarding the property’s vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens and training future generations of gardeners and horticulturalists. MacLeod served as President of the National Association of Gardeners while he was Stoneleigh’s Superintendent, and his sons later served in WWII.
There’s 15-year-old Nellie Mitchell and 16-year-old Irish immigrant Cecelia “Celia” Kennedy, servants in 1870 and 1930 respectively. Children serving families, families who sent their own children at those same ages to school. When she arrived at Ellis Island in 1929, Celia listed as her contact her aunt, Nellie Rogers, who was the waitress at Stoneleigh. In the census of the Oakwell property carved out of Stoneleigh, Celia is listed as a chambermaid along with the waitress, her cousin Margaret Rogers. Not a single woman on any census until 1930 would have been able to vote. Theses shared the servant quarters over the garage with mother and daughter Martha and Anastasia “Annie” Thater. These German immigrants were Oakwell’s cook and nurse, whose petitions for US citizenship required them to renounce “the German Reich”. Annie's photo is the only image we have of a staff member.
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There’s 19-year-old Sandy Kennedy listed as a Black farmhand in the 1870 census, and recorded as unable to read or write. He was born in Tennessee in 1851, which means he was born enslaved to parents who were enslaved. He was born one year after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, meaning during his childhood the federal government was responsible for returning people seeking freedom to their enslavers, even if they were in a free state. The surname of Kennedy may be a clue to where Sandy’s family had been enslaved prior to the end of the Civil War, held as property by one of the 40 different enslavers in Tennessee with the last name of Kennedy listed in the US government’s 1850 “slave schedule.” The Ramsey family that employed Sandy Kennedy to work their 65-acre farm in Villanova had sent two sons to fight in the Civil War, First Lieutenant Theodore F. (15th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment) and Corporal William Horn (1st Pennsylvania Cavalry, 44th Regiment). There is a "Henry Sandy Kennedy" listed in the membership of the Lower Merion Baptist Church at the corner of Old Gulph and New Gulph Rds.
And, further back, there is Jacob Ganges in the 1850 & 1860 census – he was biracial with occupation listed as a hostler, caring for horses at Ellis Ramsey’s "Green Tree Hotel" a few blocks from the family farm, and then as a farmhand. He was 41 years old in 1850, and unable to read or write, though a decade later he is marked as literate. Ellis Ramsey had five children attending school at this time, including a son who later became a schoolteacher. Perhaps they shared their lessons with the man who worked their farm? Its Ganges’ surname that hints at much more, because it is distinctive for this time and place. A surname of “Ganges” implies his mother was among the 135 enslaved Africans aboard the ships Phoebe and Prudent, who were rescued off the coast of Cuba by the USS Ganges in 1800 and brought to Philadelphia to be placed under the guardianship of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and indentured throughout the area. Each freed African received the surname “Ganges”, named for the river flowing from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal, and the namesake of the warship that saved them and their children from a lifetime of enslavement on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean.
Sources:
Further Reading:
For more information about the enslaved Africans rescued by the USS Ganges in 1800, click here.