The
The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Printed Ephemera
Henry Francis du Pont
5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur,
Delaware 19735
Telephone: 302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883
OVERVIEW OF
THE COLLECTION
Creator: Fairbanks, Noah,
1771-1852.
Title: Papers
Dates: 1830-1848.
Call No.: Col. 470
Acc. No.: 75x158
Quantity: 19 items (1 folder)
Location: 34 J 3
BIOGRAPHICAL
STATEMENT
Noah Fairbanks or Fairbank (the surname is spelled
both ways) resided in Gardner, Massachusetts, during the first half of the 19th
century. He was born in 1771 in Harvard,
Worcester County, Mass., the son of Rhoda and Amos Fairbanks. He married Hannah Whitcomb and they had eight
children. In 1802, the family moved from
Harvard to Boxborough, and then in 1806 to Gardner, where Noah Fairbank(s) died
in 1852. In Gardner, he had a farm and a
gristmill.
SCOPE AND
CONTENT
This collection contains primarily bills and
receipts addressed to Noah Fairbanks between 1830-1848. Most bills are for house construction and
maintenance. One item inscribed
"Account of building a house, 1837," notes expenses for constructing
a chimney, a well, doors, and windows, and for paint, oil, plaster, and
wallpaper. Other bills record
expenditures for shingles, lumber, clapboards, joists, food, mending chains,
and cellar repairs. Also included is an
auction record for an unnamed estate. It lists item sold, price, and
purchaser. The majority of items sold
were farm equipment, hand tools, and livestock.
ORGANIZATION
The items are in accession number order.
LANGUAGE OF
MATERIALS
The materials are in English.
RESTRICTIONS
ON ACCESS
Collection is open to the public. Copyright restrictions may apply.
PROVENANCE
Purchased from William Pennebaker.
ACCESS POINTS
Topics:
Agricultural implements –
Prices – 19th century.
Auctions -
Records and correspondence.
Dwellings -
Maintenance and repair - Massachusetts.
Farm equipment.
House
construction – Massachusetts – Gardner.
Lumber - Prices - 19th century.
Paint - Prices - 19th century.
Tools - Prices.
Bills (financial).
Invoices.
Receipts
(Acknowledgments).
DETAILED
DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION
Location: 34 J 3
All accession
number begin with 75x158.
.1 receipt:
John Cowell[?] was paid by Fairbanks, Gardner, Sept. 4, 1834.
.2 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid Lee
Townsley & Co., Gardner, for satinette, a skein of silk, buttons, sugar,
and tea, Nov. 17, 1835
.3 receipt bill: Fairbanks paid John
Williams for sharping bars and drills, setting and filing a saw, repairing a
hammer and a chain, and for purchase of a trowel; June 7-Nov. 27, 1837
.4 receipted bill: Deacon Fairbanks paid Lu.
Wood & Co., Gardner, for casks of nails, a hammer, red paint, a gallon of
oil, and fish[?], June 24, 1837;
Note on back: paid for
taxes 1837 and for Patty Moors taxes
.5 receipt bill: Fairbanks paid Horatio M.
White & Co., for common boards, etc. Gardner, Aug. 19, 1837
.6 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid James
Heywood for setting lights, Westminster, Sept. 4, 1837;
.7 receipt bill: Fairbanks paid B. G.
Heywood for clapboards, joist, window stools, lather, and house rent, Sept.
2-Nov. 23, no year;
Note on back: paid out
in cash Israel moved to E. Greenwood, Feb. 5, 1838 [with calculations]
.8 one side: money due to me, 1 horse
& shoes, money given in 1838, signed Noah Fairbank, Gardner, May 1, 1838;
Other side: real estate and personal
property taxes for 1838;
.9 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid
Lafayette Colman for sawing shingles and boards, Gardner, April 20, 1842;
.10 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid
Collester[?] & Co./ Collester[?] Rugg & Co., for flour, molasses,
sugar, and something else, July 1847-March 13, 1848;
.11 one side: bill to Fairbanks for shoeing,
and mending chains, 1847-1848;
Other side: receipt for payment,
signed N.[?] Learned[?], Nov. 20 1848;
.12 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid Lu Wood
& Co., for oil, molasses, sugar, white lead, peck of plaster, and other
goods, Oct. 23, 1837;
On back: bought 50
pounds of white lead and 6 gallons of oil; and calculations to find the whole
expense of the house
.13 receipted bill: Fairbanks paid Edbert[?]
& Clymer, for bowl and ewer, tea, a desk[?], and other goods, Oct. 30,
1838;
Note: .14-.17
were inside .18, which is a brown paper folder:
.14 letter wrapper addressed to Dea [Deacon]
Noah Fairbank, Gardner, Mass., re-used for various notes, including
stocks of boards
sawed at White’s Mill;
Puffer’s work of
framing;
Numbers of days
others worked, including Williams, Stoddard. Mr. Lord;
Work done to the
cellar and work done to cellar of the barn;
Roberson’s hay;
Taxes for 1837
and Polly Mors taxes;
S. W. B. sawing
lath and boards;
And a few other
notes relating to building a house and barn;
.15 page from an account book or daybook, Gardner,
1816-1817, listing purchases of barley, potatoes, flour, rye, a lamb, wheat, by
various people; and also recording days of work for a few people
.16-.17 page [now in two pieces] from an
account book, Gardner, 1831; at top of page: Herick[?] Waller[?] & Noah
Fairbank detter [sic]; with charges such as boarding Joel Clark and others,
carting wood and timber, and using oxen to go to Avery Turner’s mill; and sales
of boards, walnut slitwork, oak planks, and a crosscut saw; etc.;
Other side: on top half
of page: index, headed Boxborough, March 4, 1806[?], with eight names; bottom
half of page has a notes about installing Rev. Sumner Lincoln in Aug. 1830[?],
raising the meeting house on Oct. 2, 1830, and someone being ordained on Dec.
9, 1830
.18 brown paper wrapper in which .14-.17 were
placed; but also has notes:
List of wood had of B.
F. Heyward, including hemlock slitwork, clapboards, hemlock boards;
Items
for which paid Wood: cloth, molasses, cheese;
Lent
Mr. Glazier $2 cash;
Calculations
Note: .19 is a
little booklet, made by folding papers inside each others
.19 “An
account of the cost of building a house, Gardner, January 1, 1837”:
starts with record of number of days spent
chopping [trees] and sledding them; then note of expenses of the chimney; records
of how many days named men worked, and sometimes what they did (Coming and
Tucker laid bricks); what goods were purchased (bought nails, oil, and paints
from Wood); Richard Wheeler dug a well and Phinney worked in it, etc.;
a separate piece
of paper laid into the above records more work and purchases, dated Jan. 1,
1838; this includes shingles, wallpaper, boards for the woodhouse, and more oil
and paint;
then is found a
“Record of Sales of Property Sold at Auction, Jan. 24, 1836”: accounts mostly
in pencil; mostly sold were agricultural tools and livestock, including axes, a
coopers adze, potato hook, bridle, whiffletree, manure fork, ox yokes, augers,
cider barrels, guns, cords of wood, bushels of potatoes, a plough, a flail, a
pitchfork, cows, sheep, south end, north end, east side, a basket; it is not
known whose property was being sold