GrahamT on 29 Mar 2006  •  Link

On 26th March 1658, Samuel Pepys was "cut for the stone".
Each year on the same date, or near to it, he has a celebration in thanks of being delivered safely from the both the stone and the dangerous operation to remove it.

GrahamT on 27 Mar 2007  •  Link

1660:
This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut of the stone at Mrs. Turner's in Salisbury Court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house, and for ever to have Mrs. Turner and her company with me.

1661:
This is my great day that three years ago I was cut of the stone, and, blessed be God, I do yet find myself very free from pain again.

1662:
This being, by God's great blessing, the fourth solemn day of my cutting for the stone this day four years, and am by God's mercy in very good health, and like to do well, the Lord's name be praised for it.

1663:
This day is five years since it pleased God to preserve me at my being cut of the stone, of which I bless God I am in all respects well. Only now and then upon taking cold I have some pain, but otherwise in very good health always.

1664:
...and so home, and there found Madam Turner, her daughter The., Joyce Norton, my father and Mr. Honywood, and by and by come my uncle Wight and aunt. This being my solemn feast for my cutting of the stone, it being now, blessed be God! this day six years since the time; and I bless God I do in all respects find myself free from that disease or any signs of it, more than that upon the least cold I continue to have pain in making water, by gathering of wind and growing costive, till which be removed I am at no ease, but without that I am very well. One evil more I have, which is that upon the least squeeze almost my cods begin to swell and come to great pain, which is very strange and troublesome to me, though upon the speedy applying of a poultice it goes down again, and in two days I am well again.

Terry Foreman on 19 Jul 2017  •  Link

1665:
This is the day seven years which, by the blessing of God, I have survived of my being cut of the stone, and am now in very perfect good health and have long been; and though the last winter hath been as hard a winter as any have been these many years, yet I never was better in my life, nor have not, these ten years, gone colder in the summer than I have done all this winter, wearing only a doublet, and a waistcoate cut open on the back; abroad, a cloake and within doors a coate I slipped on.

1666:
Pepys fails to observe or mention his having been cut of the Stone.

1667:
Up with a sad heart in reference to my mother, of whose death I undoubtedly expect to hear the next post, if not of my father’s also, who by his pain as well as his grief for her is very ill, but on my own behalf I have cause to be joyful this day, it being my usual feast day, for my being cut of the stone this day nine years, and through God’s blessing am at this day and have long been in as good condition of health as ever I was in my life or any man in England is, God make me thankful for it! But the condition I am in, in reference to my mother, makes it unfit for me to keep my usual feast.

1668:
Pepys fails to observe or mention his having been cut of the Stone 26 March.
27 March: This day, at noon, comes Mr. Pelling to me, and shews me the stone cut lately out of Sir Thomas Adams’ (the old comely Alderman’s) body, which is very large indeed, bigger I think than my fist, and weighs above twenty-five ounces and, which is very miraculous, he never in all his life had any fit of it, but lived to a great age without pain, and died at last of something else, without any sense of this in all his life.

1669:
This being done, we to supper, and so to talk, Commissioner Middleton being mighty good company upon a journey, and so to bed, thinking how merry my people are at this time, putting Tom and Jane to bed, being to have been married this day, it being also my feast for my being cut of the stone, but how many years I do not remember, but I think it to be about ten or eleven.

San Diego Sarah on 23 Mar 2021  •  Link

1668

He did celebrate with a Stone Dinner, but he didn't name it as such. It was on Monday, March 23:

"... everything in good order against dinner, and at noon come Mr. Pierce and she, and Mrs. Manuel, the Jew’s wife, and Mrs. Corbet, and Mrs. Pierces boy and girl. But we are defeated of Knepp, by her being forced to act to-day, and also of Harris, which did trouble me, they being my chief guests. However, I had an extraordinary good dinner, and the better because dressed by my own servants, and were mighty merry; and here was Mr. Pelling by chance come and dined with me; and after sitting long at dinner, I had a barge ready at Tower-wharfe, to take us in, and so we went, all of us, up as high as Barne-Elms, a very fine day, and all the way sang; and Mrs. Manuel sings very finely, and is a mighty discreet, sober-carriaged woman, that both my wife and I are mightily taken with her, and sings well, and without importunity or the contrary. At Barne-Elms we walked round, and then to the barge again, and had much merry talk, and good singing; and come before it was dark to the New Exchange stairs, and there landed, and walked up to Mrs. Pierces, where we sat awhile, and then up to their dining-room. And so, having a violin and theorbo, did fall to dance, here being also Mrs. Floyd come hither, and by and by Mr. Harris. But there being so few of us that could dance, and my wife not being very well, we had not much pleasure in the dancing: there was Knepp also, by which with much pleasure we did sing a little, and so, about ten o’clock, I took coach with my wife and Deb., and so home, and there to bed."

See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…