There are few things that give me as much pleasure as opening a notebook that I can tell from the paper cover has about 200 years on it--in this case the cover a pretty soft blue, and the notebook kept by a William Gimler, spanning the period 1834 to 1852. Gimler was clearly a farmer and here tracks, sporadically it seems, bushels of oats and wheat and corn sold, as well as pork butchered, including noting the weight of Joseph Figley's hog (163 pounds) and another sale, to a Samuel King, of 514 pounds of pork--my goodness! My favorite thing is the list of varieties of apples, by row, growing in the orchard (Monstrous Pippins, White Bellflower, Lady's Blush, etc...) And then a family chronology at the end, spanning from William, born 1807 and "bound in matrimony" in 1835, through what appear to be a whole bunch of children, finally William Arvin Gilmer, born in 1852. I just can't leave behind a thing like this, a portrait of a life. And the hatch marks running across the front inside cover are quite satisfying, too.
5 5/8" x 3 11/16", 25 p plus covers--some filled, some blank, photos give a good sense. Good condition and holding together well.
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