Women in Wakefield:  Rebekah Evans.

Today’s Wakefield’s Women’s History Month spotlight is on Rebekah Evans, whose sketch is provided here.   She is the grandmother of one of our previous subjects, Harriet Newell Flint, the donor of our Civil War Monument.

When searching for some representative women to write about for this series, it is somewhat hard to find subjects in the early nineteenth century.  This was a very small town — a village, really — with a stagecoach that usually took one trip per week to Boston, and a cluster of homes with a small shop or two gathered around a large field called a Common that stretched from what is now the Upper Common all the way to the present Water Street.  Most of the people who lived here were small farmers, many of whom had a ‘shoe shed’ in their back yard where they could turn their hand toward making and mending parts of shoes for extra cash during the long, hard winter months.  They had their land, their families and their faith, but it was that faith that inspired a woman named Rebekah Evans to have a small book published about her after her death.

Rebekah Smith married Thomas Evans when she was just 17 and he was 27.  By 1784, they had purchased a farm, on Main Street, across from the pond (in the vicinity of Sweetser Street.)  They prospered on their farm, and Tom raised sweet apples which he turned into vinegar and traveled to Salem to sell.  Legend has it that he actually had so many apples that he gave some away for free. His profit was in the vinegar.  

Tom and Rebekah had eight children, three of whom died before their mother.  Tom died in 1814 at the age of 65, but Rebekah outlived him by many years.  

In her later years she was deeply religious and took to paper to pen her reflections upon her faith journey, recounting how frightened she had been, as a young wife, about the war that wracked our brand new nation, and her constant fears about the health of her children and her husband.  In the autumn of 1786, just after their had purchased their farm, the entire family was ravaged by illness and Rebekah was terrified.  She worried about her children and her own health, of course, but her husband was gravely ill as well.  What would they do, she wondered, if he did not survive?  The farm had not been paid for.  How would she support her children?  What would happen to them?  Thankfully Thomas survived, and Rebekah found religion as the result, embracing the Baptist faith.  

After Thomas’ death, Rebekah lived on for many years, beloved by her children and many grandchildren, who later published the little book about her.  

They all greatly admired her as a woman of spirit and faith, but she had one small weakness — it seemed the Rebekah was incredibly superstitious and terribly afraid of ghosts.  Her grandchildren vividly remember sitting around her near the fire on a winter night, while she spoke of haunted houses, prophetic dreams and spirit communications.  Many of them remember a certain lady visiting — a woman named Thankful Walton, who was a fortune teller.  After reading Rebekah’s palm and studying the leaves in her teacup, Thankful made several prophecies for Rebekah, that she would remember until her dying day.  Among the prophecies was one in which Rebekah would receive a present from a distant land.  Sure enough, in a few weeks, a package came for Mrs. Evans, that contained a finely woven cloth woven in brilliantly colored plaids, which she long treasured and displayed to visitors.  Later it was donated to the church, where it was used for many years to wrap the sacred vessels in.

Rebekah died in 1835, aged 77 years. Two of her grandchildren had names that might be familiar to the town:  Lucius Bolles Evans, who started the L. B. Evans shoe business and Harriet Flint, who later donated the Soldiers and Sailors Monument to the town.

“Women in Wakefield” is a feature of the Wakefield Historical Society, which will spotlight one historic woman each day in order to show what life was like in our early town, and also to show some of the women who helped to shape the character of our town. All of the profiles will be featured on our website’s blog at http://www.wakefieldhistory.org and also on our social media pages.  Many of them will also be shared through the courtesy of the Wakefield Daily Item.  

If you are enjoying them, please consider supporting the Wakefield Historical Society’s all-volunteer work supporting and sustaining our Museum.