The Winterthur Library

 The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum

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