A short newspaper item headed "Chance for a Spinster" has been shared millions of times online. In it, an 18-year-old from Aroostook County, Maine, explains that he wants a wife and lists what he can offer: good teeth, cleared land, a house, a barn, a few animals and a promising potato crop. Readers today find it funny and oddly touching, and many have joked that they would accept on the spot.
The clipping is genuine in the sense that it really was printed in 1865. Whether a real young man ever wrote it is another question. Research by Maine journalist Steve Collins suggests it may have been a joke from the start. Below is what the advertisement actually says, what its old-fashioned phrases mean, and what is known about where it came from.
What the clipping says
The item introduces the writer as a young man advertising for a wife and then lets him speak in his own voice. He says he is eighteen, has "a good set of teeth" and believes in Andy Johnson, the star-spangled banner and the Fourth of July. He has taken up a State lot, cleared eighteen acres the previous year and seeded ten of them. His buckwheat looks first-rate, and his oats and potatoes are "bully".
His livestock is listed with care: nine sheep, a two-year-old bull and two heifers, along with a house and a barn. Then comes the heart of the matter. He wants to get married, and he wants to buy bread and butter, hoop-skirts and waterfalls for "some person of the female persuasion" for life. His closing line is the one that wins readers over: that is what is the matter with him, but he does not know how to do it.
Decoding the 1860s language
Part of the charm is the vocabulary, which needs a little translation:
- Spinster was the usual term for an unmarried woman, often one considered past the typical age for marriage. The headline is a light-hearted pitch to her.
- Andy Johnson is Andrew Johnson, who became president of the United States in April 1865 after Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Declaring belief in him, the flag and Independence Day was a quick way of saying "I am a patriotic, loyal citizen" in the months after the Civil War.
- A State lot refers to land taken up from the state. Maine encouraged settlement of its northern woodlands in this period, and clearing and planting the land was how a settler made it a farm.
- Bully was popular slang for excellent or first-class, the same word Theodore Roosevelt would later make famous.
- Hoop-skirts and waterfalls were fashion items. Hoop-skirts were the wide, supported skirts of the 1860s, and a "waterfall" was a fashionable hairstyle in which the hair was gathered and allowed to fall at the back of the head, often with added hairpieces.
Seen in that light, the advertisement is a neat portrait of what a young farmer might be proud of: health, loyalty, hard work and a farm that is starting to pay. The joke is that he presents it all like an inventory.
Was the young man real?
In 2023 Steve Collins, a columnist for the Portland Press Herald, tried to trace the story. The earliest version he found ran in the Lewiston Evening Journal on 14 July 1865, which named the writer as John Morris and said he had written to the Houlton Times, a newspaper in Aroostook County. Several other papers reprinted it, and Harper's Weekly ran a nearly identical version on 2 September 1865 among other humorous items.
Collins could find no John Morris in Aroostook County who matched the description in census or military records, and copies of the Houlton Times from that year may no longer survive. Nineteenth-century newspapers routinely shared comic letters and invented characters, often copying them from one another with little regard for whether they were true. The most likely explanation is that the advertisement was a piece of humour about country courtship rather than a real proposal, though it cannot be ruled out that a real letter lies somewhere behind it.
The online versions also tend to add a date and a backstory that the clipping alone cannot prove. The image shows only the text, not the name of the paper, the date or the page. Without those details, any claim about who wrote it or what happened next is guesswork.
Why it went viral
The clipping spread across Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter around 2017, reportedly collecting tens of thousands of upvotes on Reddit alone. Much of the reaction came from people comparing it with modern dating profiles. As one Facebook commenter put it, "He had me at 'my potatoes are bully.'"
It is easy to see why. Dating apps reward polished photos and clever one-liners; this young man offers practical facts and an honest admission that he has no idea how courtship works. It feels sincere even if it was written as a joke, and it pokes gentle fun at the idea that marriage is a simple transaction.
Marriage advertisements in the 19th century
Real personal advertisements did exist in the 1800s, both in the United States and in Britain, and they became more common as cities grew and people moved far from their home communities. On the American frontier, where men often outnumbered women, newspapers and later dedicated matrimonial papers carried notices from people hoping to meet a spouse by letter. Some led to genuine marriages; others were scams or jokes.
The practical tone of "Chance for a Spinster" reflects that world. Marriage on a working farm was a partnership with real economic weight, and land, animals and a sound house were serious assets. At the same time, the piece reminds us that people in the 1860s laughed at the same things we do: awkward young men, earnest lists of good qualities and the mystery of how anyone finds a partner.
Reading old clippings with care
Viral history posts are a lot of fun, but they often lose the context that would help us understand them. Before sharing a clipping as proof of how people lived, it helps to ask a few questions: Which newspaper printed it? On what date? Was it presented as news, an advertisement or humour? Has a historian or library confirmed it?
In this case, the answers make the story richer rather than spoiling it. The young farmer from Aroostook County may never have existed, but his imagined voice has outlived almost everything else printed that summer, and he still makes strangers smile more than 150 years later.
Sources: Steve Collins, Portland Press Herald: Did a young Maine farmer with "a good set of teeth" really offer a "Chance for a Spinster"? (2023); clipping as shared by Bored Panda.
What 18 years old used to mean. Responsible, self-reliant, property owner in a major way. Looking for a similarly good woman to settle with. If only this spirit could be recaptured now.
ReplyDelete