Thursday October 10: A beautiful day. Had a nice drive [with] Mary [Means] and Mary [Morton] and Clara. Got some autumn leaves. Met the boys going into the Gymnasium going and coming out as we came back.
Friday 11: Amy Charnley, girl [?] and Lottie M(orton). went from Andover to day to Chicago. Lottie is to stay till Spring.
Saturday 12: Rained very hard. Went to the Old South at ten to hear Mr. Hall. The school was obliged to go. Academy boys and theologues. Most of the girls had on their best. I wore my old brown hat and did not look very well. I did not know any one would be there but our school.
Monday 14: Grandmother, Grandfather and my Great Aunt came to day. Found them at the house when I got home from a nice long walk with MM and MM.
The two Marys – Means and Morton – are two of Abby’s closest friends throughout the two years of the diary, and the trio would remain close for years to come. In July 1880, Abby and Mary Morton would bring sons for baptism on the same day at Andover’s Christ Church, with Mary Means standing sponsor for little Arthur Whitreau, Mary Morton’s son.
Mary Hoppin Morton was the daughter of Judge Marcus Morton. He had represented Andover in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the 1850s, and had been a respected town leader during the Civil War. In 1867, he held a position in the Superior Court of Suffolk County, and would be named Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1869. Mary attended Abbot Academy and married Mr. Clarence Whitreau and lived as an adult in Staten Island and Katonah, New York.
Mary McGregor Means was the daughter of William G. Means, who was the treasurer of the Manchester (NH) Locomotive Works, manufacturers of locomotives, stationary steam engines and tools. She was the cousin of Emily Means, the Andover teacher and artist who later became the straight-laced principal of Abbot Academy, and the grand-niece of Mrs. Jane Means Appleton Pierce, the wife of President Franklin Pierce, who spent several summers in Andover. Mary Means died in 1906 at the age of 57.
