Revolution Then! We are currently offering the Revolutionary-era (our revolution) diary of John Clark (1750-1814), a potter and farmer of Lyndeboro, NH. His brother Peter was an eminent potter of the area. devout Puritan, and a Revolutionary War captain. Clearly a wonderful piece of social and family history for New England! Clark, John. [Holograph diary of the potter John Clark in Lyndeboro, New Hampshire, spanning the years January 1778 to December 1802]. Lyndeboro, NH: the author, 1778-1802. Holograph diary of 300 pages, roughly 4x6.5 inch leaves crudely sewn together into two “volumes,” lacking any exterior cover. The earlier pages show wear to the upper right corner with minor loss of text, mainly affecting the dates, while the records penned on the last several pages have grown very faint; the first pages of the second portion are worn and chipped at the lower right corner. In all, a quite legible diary spanning the period from January 1778 to December 1802 at the rate of one page per month, each page divided into horizontal lines for listing the activities of each day. (#191610) $3,500.00 John worked as a potter and farmer, and most entries detail activities on the farm or otherwise associated with labor or shopping, as well as social visits, travel to towns throughout the region, births and deaths, and events such as elections or religious services. Some pages are packed with events, while others (especially in months with bad weather) reveal only the drudgery of work around the home or farm. His brother Peter Clark, a captain of the Ninth Regiment of the New Hampshire militia during the Revolutionary War, local Puritan leader, and member of the state legislature, had moved to Lyndeboro from Braintree in 1775 (the same year as John) and is mentioned intermittently throughout. John seems to have been equally devoted to his religion, judging by his notes of the books of the Bible he was reading and various church activities. There are handwritten notes for sermons in a separate little batch that came with these, of uncertain connection but with dates from the same period. For anyone researching this part of New Hampshire the brief but cumulatively extensive listings of social events could be of interest. These unsigned diaries were passed down in the family with lore about their having belonged to John Clark, lore which we have confirmed by comparing events on specific days (such as the birth of his daughter on November 19, 1778) with details in the “Records of the Descendants of Hugh Clark, of Watertown, Mass. 1640-1866,” in which the author of this diary is mentioned on page 65 and his brother Peter on the preceding pages.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 00:08:39 +0000
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