"Hi, y'all, I collect china head dolls and have for years. The dolls are dated by their hairdo. Hitty's hairdo definitely fits the Civil War Era. Earlier hairdos were flat to the head. The Covered Wagon hairdo was the 1840's. And earlier, they had these weird locks hanging down in front of their ears. It seems to me the Antique Dealer probably exagerated to make a good sale. I think it was a mistake to think she was made in the 1830's, but it doesn't matter, really. She is a lovely little creature. Her flat heeled shoes also indicate that time period. Earlier, they wore delicate slippers.
Susan in C"--October 2004

We know that Hitty meets Adelena Patti in November of 1862.Consider the following:
1862--meets Patti
1828--latest date of creation.
That leaves 34 years unaccounted for in her life.

From the latest date she could possibly have been created, she spent almost two of those years with the Prebles, an unknown amount of time in the horsehair couch, and two years before she meets Patti. This would mean that she was in the couch for 25--30 years. That is clearly impossible, since she says that she is found by a cousin of the little birthday girl, who had since grown up and married. On the other hand, Hilda says it was not uncommon for second or third cousins--or people of no relation, to be called cousin, so the time in the couch is possible.

Hitty claims to have met Patti in 1862, and then mentions that the Civil War has started. This is a slight mix-up on her part. The Civil War started in 1861, and ended in 1865.

Hitty met Patti in 1962. She was lost on New Year's Eve of 1870. Clarissa turned twelve in 1864, and Hitty was in the box in the attic until found by Miss Pinch in 1868. We can calculate from this that she was with Clarissa from 1862 until 1864 (two years). She was in the box from 1864--1868 (four years). She was with Isabella on New Year's Eve in 1870 (two years). This make a total of eight years. She met Dickens in 1868.

Due to some comments made by the sisters (that they had both lost beaus in the Civil War) and Hitty's comments as to the sisters' ages, we wonder if she considered them to be old when they could not have been more than 45 to 50? The Civil War ran from 1861 to 1864, and even if the beaus had been killed on the very first day of the war (and we know one was killed in the battle of Vicksburg), that would still have only made it 20 years before the Cotton Exposition in New Orleans, which occurred in 1884-85.

Miss Pamela guesses Hitty's age to be near one hundred at this point, but even with the most generous of reckoning, she could only have been fifty-seven years old. And that's assuming she was carved in 1829, which she may not have been.

If we leap ahead and know she sees the calendar in the stable office as 1913, then at this point in time she is between 84 and 88 years old now. This means she spent 28 years while with Miss Pamela and then lost in the tree roots.