New Items as of April 29 - binders & 2 Gems

 New Items as of April 29 - binders &  2 Gems

 Several Colrain historical items were found in the hall chest upstairs in the Pitt House during our work bee on Friday the 26th. Mixed in with some Bill Pitt theatre scrapbooks and some old dolls, we found two gems - an pre-revolutionary account ledger, and the 1939 manuscript for the History of the Griswoldville mills.
This "new items" batch has those two and several other things we have cataloged this past week.
See also the airtable link to all the New items.

# 3583    Richard Ellis Account Book   1765
This may be the most historically valuable item in the CHS collections, a 6" x 16" ledger of sales and payments starting in 1765.  On several dozen double pages in this book Mr. Ellis kept track of each of his regular customers buying and selling. Below we see that James Clark was paying for his purchases (on the left page) with loads of ashes (right page). This may mean that storekeeper Ellis had a "potash works" on his property, which was at the top of Chandler Hill near the David Nims house.


The provenance of this ledger is interesting. CHS received it in 1982.  A folded newsletter from Ashfield in 1946 says that "about 10 years ago it was found in an ash-can" in Detroit.  The handwritten page in the picture above is a 1884 note about the history of the ledger.  Sarah Hollister transcribed the 1884 note this week (using Ancestry.com to get the correct spelling of some of the names):

A tiny card found loose in the book is the accession record (see below).


Cataloging this 1765 ledger in detail would be a worthwhile and "fun" project. Any volunteers?

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#2583  History of the Griswoldville Manufacturing Company 1838-1939
The other "gem" in the hall chest was the typed original manuscript (1939, rev 1943) of the GM Co history by George Richardson. This is a 3-ring binder with pasted in photographs.  There was a softcover printed reproduction issued in 2000 but that edition has new material and it is not clear what is Richardson's original work. Now we can know.


#2584 Hezekiah Smith family bible.

Of interest in this bible are the family records written in on 2 of the bound pages and some loose sheets with genealogical information. One of 2 pages shown here.

There is no publication date, but the family notes suggest the owner may have been the grandson of "THE Hezekiah Smith" , who had the same name.

#2576 Colrain Signature Quilt ca 1920
This item has been in safekeeping at Belden's house until this week when we accessioned and photographed it. It is a full size bed quilt (80" x 90") and bears the names of dozens of Colrain people.


This now stored in the chest in the "little room" at the head of the stairs.

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