I asked the FREE AI tool Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 to provide information about the life of a wife and mother, Hannah (Rich) Richmond (1824-1911) in 1875 in Putnam, Connecticut. I attached ABC Biography of #21 Hannah (Rich) Richman/Richmond (1824-1911) of Wiltshire and New England to provide information to the AI tool.
1) The prompt was: "Based on the attached document, please describe Hannah Richmond’s life in 1875 in Putnam, Connecticut."
2) The Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 response was:
Hannah (Rich) Richmond's Life in 1875
A Bustling Household
In 1875, Hannah Richmond was fifty-one years old and living in Putnam, Connecticut, with her husband James and their large family. After nearly twenty years in America, she had long since adjusted to life in New England, though her English roots and accent likely remained evident. In 1871, the family purchased their dairy farm from Nathaniel Battey. Hannah was mistress of her own farmhouse on what would become known as Richmond Road, near the Pomfret road -- a significant step up from their earlier years of renting.
Family at Home
Hannah's household in 1875 was still quite full, though some of her older children were beginning to establish their own lives. Her daughters Louisa (age 22), Elizabeth (age 20), and Emma (age 19) were all working in the local woolen mills, bringing home wages that helped support the family and likely contributed to paying down the mortgage on the farm. These young women would rise early, walk to the mill, and spend long days at their looms before returning home in the evening.
Her younger children were still at home: Hannah Rebecca (called "Rebecca") was about seventeen, John Henry was ten, and Charles was just eight years old. The younger boys likely attended school when farm chores permitted, while Rebecca was probably helping her mother with household work and may have been working in the mills as well.
Her two oldest sons had already married and moved away. Thomas had married Julia White in 1868 and was working as a boss carder in Elmville, Connecticut. James Jr. had also married Jane White that same year and was building his career in the woolen industry. Hannah must have felt the bittersweet mixture of pride in their success and the natural sadness of seeing her children leave home.
Daily Work on the Farm
Hannah's days in 1875 would have been filled with endless labor. As the wife on a small dairy farm, her work was critical to the family's survival and success. While James and eventually their sons John and Charles handled the fieldwork and the care of the dairy herd, Hannah managed the domestic side of the operation.
Her mornings likely started before dawn. The cows needed milking twice daily, and while this was primarily men's work, Hannah would have been responsible for what came next. Fresh milk needed to be strained, cooled in the springhouse or cellar, and either prepared for sale or processed into butter and cheese. Butter-making was particularly labor-intensive -- cream had to be skimmed, churned (which could take an hour or more of constant work), and then the butter had to be worked to remove excess buttermilk, salted, and formed into pounds for sale or storage.
If the family made cheese, that added yet another layer of work -- heating milk to precise temperatures, adding rennet, cutting curds, pressing, and then aging the cheese. This was skilled work that Hannah likely learned through trial and error after arriving in America, as it would have been quite different from her girlhood experience as a weaver in England.
Beyond dairy work, Hannah was responsible for feeding a household of seven or eight people three substantial meals a day. This meant tending a kitchen garden in the growing season, preserving food for winter, baking bread several times a week, cooking on a wood stove that needed constant attention, and managing the family's supplies. She would have been doing laundry for the entire family -- a back-breaking task involving hauling and heating water, scrubbing clothes by hand, wringing them out, and hanging them to dry.
The house itself required constant maintenance -- floors to sweep and scrub, chamber pots to empty, beds to make, mending and sewing to keep the family clothed. In an era before electric lights, running water, or any modern appliances, every single task took exponentially more time and physical effort than we can easily imagine today.
A Quiet Disposition
Hannah's obituary would later describe her as being "of a quiet disposition" who was "content to make a happy home for the large family which she reared." This suggests that Hannah was not a woman who sought the spotlight or social prominence. She found her satisfaction in the daily work of caring for her family, creating a stable and loving home environment despite the hardships they'd endured.
This quiet nature may have been partly temperament and partly a reflection of her working-class English background, where women were expected to be modest and self-effacing. It may also have reflected the exhaustion of a woman who had borne nine children (eight living), crossed the ocean with five young children, including an infant, worked as a weaver, and now labored on a farm from dawn to dusk.
Faith and Community
Hannah and James were members of the Methodist church in Putnam, where James was known affectionately as "Father Richmond." In 1875, Hannah would have attended services regularly -- Sunday being the one day of the week when the endless cycle of work paused, at least partially. The Methodist church would have provided not just spiritual sustenance but also social connection with other families in the community.
Church activities likely included prayer meetings, ladies' aid societies, and social events. These gatherings gave farm women like Hannah a chance to connect with other women, share news, exchange recipes and household tips, and support one another. The church community would have been especially important for an immigrant family, providing social integration and a sense of belonging in their adopted country.
Relationships with Extended Family
By 1875, Hannah had been separated from most of her English family for nearly twenty years. However, she still had two siblings nearby -- her brother William Rich lived in Putnam, and her bortyher Samuel lived in nearby Pomfret. This connection to her birth family must have been precious to her, a living link to her childhood in Hilperton. She, William and Samuel likely visited when they could, sharing memories of England and their parents, John and Rebecca. These relationships with her brothers would have been especially meaningful as Hannah navigated life in a new country, far from the land of her birth.
Reflection on Her Journey
By 1875, Hannah had been in America for nineteen years and married to James for thirty years. Looking back on her life, she had witnessed remarkable changes. She'd gone from being a young weaver in rural England to a mill wife in Rhode Island, and finally to a farmer's wife in Connecticut. She'd survived the loss of a child (little Ann), the challenges of immigration, and years of hard work in the mills before finally achieving the relative security of land ownership.
Though her life was one of constant labor and her "interests and activities" were almost entirely circumscribed by the demands of farm and family, Hannah had achieved something significant. She and James had successfully transplanted their family to a new country, purchased their own land, and were raising children who were finding success in America. Her daughters were earning wages and gaining independence. Her sons were learning trades and establishing themselves.
In quiet moments -- perhaps while churning butter or working in her garden -- Hannah might have reflected on how far she'd come from that village in Wiltshire where she'd learned to weave as a girl. She'd signed her marriage certificate with an "X" because she couldn't write her name, but she was raising children who attended school and had opportunities she'd never dreamed of in her youth.
Hannah's life in 1875 wasn't glamorous or filled with leisure pursuits. She didn't have hobbies in the modern sense, nor time for recreation. Her "interests" were necessarily focused on the immediate and practical: keeping her family fed, clothed, healthy, and together. Her "activities" were the endless round of cooking, cleaning, dairy work, and farm labor that defined rural women's lives in the 19th century.
Yet within those constraints, Hannah created something valuable and lasting -- a home, a family, and a legacy that would extend through generations. Her quiet strength and steady work were the foundation on which the Richmond family built their American dream.
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3) The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this post is below.
4) I have no easy way to double check on these responses from Claude. I don't have many book resources for the subjects and the locality, but there are published books available for this time period and general location. The AI tools have been pre-trained on historical events, social history, geography, education, occupations, literature and other disciplines so they can provide information for questions like this one, and now have the ability to search the Internet for website articles.
5) As genealogists, we can usually find the early 19th century vital and census records for our American families, and we may find occupation, newspaper, land and probate records. The persons highlighted are the family of my 2nd great-grandparents and I have significant information about their lives from the available records, but I know nothing about their daily lives other than what the records tell me.
6) After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit the Richmond family in Connecticut and witness their daily lives. I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.
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