Domestic Service and the Johnston Family

(From the September 2008 Historical Society Newsletter)

Between 1822, when the Johnstons took up residence in Seneca County and 1890 when Robert Swan died, widespread changes occurred in farming, technology, and the marketplace.  These changes are reflected in the social and economic relationships between these two families and their household laborers.  Using the primary sources available to us in our archives and extensive materials produced by historians during the past few years, we hope to better understand how these changes played out on the two farms.

Finding information about domestic workers is very difficult.  Since most were female, often immigrants and sometimes illiterate, few left the written records of their lives that their employers did.  The census indicates the names, ages, and origins of servants in the two households from 1850 through 1880 but prior to 1850 the census only names the head of the household and indicates the number of male or female residents in the household by their age in five-year increments.  Determining who was who is a matter of educated guesswork.

When the Johnstons first settled on their farm, the family did not likely have money to spare for household servants, but kinship ties provided some source of help.  John’s unmarried sister Agnes stayed with them for a few years to help establish the household, but she returned to Scotland in 1825.  By the 1830 census, three males and seven females resided in the household.  Aside from Johnston, the other two men were likely farm laborers.  Six of the females are Margaret Johnson, and her daughters.  The other woman is probably Margaret McMath, who resided with the family in 1850 and is buried in the family plot at Glenwood Cemetery.  According to her brief 1852 obituary, Margaret McMath lived with the family for 40 years.  She was mentioned in several letters from Johnston family members in Scotland and apparently came from the same area as the family.

Who Margaret McMath was or how she came to be integral part of the Johnson family is a mystery we may not solve.  After searching online genealogical records for Johnston’s home country of Dumfries, we found reference to several Margaret McMath’s in the area, but no solid information to confirm that any of them was her.  The fact that she is buried in the family plot indicates that she was more than a servant.  Perhaps she was a distant Johnston relative or a neighbor who emigrated with the family as a companion.  Like John Johnston, she may have thought there would be better opportunities for her in the United States than in Scotland. What her motivations were or what she expected of immigration is only speculative, since she left no record of her thoughts or desires.

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