One of the journals was kept for a month in the summer of 1866 by Hannah Minor Niles. A deeply religious woman, Hannah recorded her reflections on life and death, and her eighty eight year old mother's loneliness: "she clings to me can hardly have me out of her sight so fraid I shall die and leave her, I try to calm her fears." Hannah herself was already in her 60s, and her years of accumulated fatigue are palpable. "Tired and weary, I sit down all alone to rest. What a busy life! So much to be done to feed and clothe these bodies, one season passeth away and another cometh. as to labour, the same thing over & over . . . ."

There is also an undated journal written by a young, unidentified male Niles, that gives an account of a trip from Smithfield to visit family in Halifax and Guilford, in southern Vermont. John Bird, who was probably Lark Bird's brother, used the bound volume to keep track of his patron's individual accounts at his general store from 1846 to 1857.

The letters include two from women to their husbands, who were away on business, a recommendation for Lark Bird, stating that he is capable of teaching at a common school, two newsy letters from Hannah Niles to relatives, and a letter given to Lark Bird by Hannah Niles shortly before their children, George Bird and Nancy Niles, were married, expressing her best wishes for the couple and the united families.

Subject index:

Aged women--Family relationships

Baptism

Business records

Death--Religious aspects

General stores--Pennsylvania--Smithfield

Halifax (Vt.)

Husband and wife

Mothers and daughters--Pennsylvania

Smithfield (Pa.)

Teachers--Pennsylvania

Vermont--Description and travel

Women and religion

Correspondents:

Bird, John
Bird, Lark
Farwell, Roxana
Farwell, Samuel
Orton, Polly Jane
Niles, Hannah Minor, 1802-1902
Niles, Nancy L., 1828-1914
Niles, Samuel, 1804-1891

Provenance:

Acquired, 1991.

M-2711
cat. 6/98 rko

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