Sale 2455 - Printed & Manuscript Americana, September 28, 2017

158 158 c   (MASSACHUSETTS.) Memorandum book of early Rehoboth merchant Ebenezer Bullock. [14] manuscript pages. 4to, stitched, lacking wrappers; dampstaining, apparently missing some leaves, vertical fold throughout. [Rehoboth, MA], 1701-21 [800/1,200] Ebenezer Bullock (1676-1724) was a sawyer and merchant in Rehoboth in southern Massachusetts near the Rhode Island line.This slim volume includes a wide variety of his memoranda, much of it maritime, including frequent sales of ship’s planks, the fitting up of a ship called the Endeavor for fishing voyages, and an investment in the sloop Greyhound bound for Barbados. His expenses for house construction in 1714 are detailed:“8 thousand and 4 hundred of bricks . . . stoning my seller, makeing my oven, plaistering my house.”A few local deaths are recorded, as well as the Great Snow of 1717: “A grate storm of snow such as had not ben known this forty yeare past and a grate many cretures was lost, and that is bad you know for the conterry.” Both handwriting and spelling are creative throughout. A great local history source. 157 c   (MASSACHUSETTS.) Ledger of Fall River day laborer Aaron Borden, including work done for Lizzie Borden’s ancestor. 10-22, 24-117 leaves. 4to, original 1 / 2 calf, worn; free endpapers and leaves 1-9 and 23 excised, and leaves 93-107 blank, otherwise minor foxing and wear; advertisement of a Dublin ship’s chandler on rear pastedown. Troy [Fall River], MA, 1807-30 [300/400] Aaron Borden (1758-circa 1830) lived for most of his adult life in Troy, MA, which later became the city of Fall River. He was not a close relative of Fall River’s most famous daughter, the accused axe murderer Lizzie Borden. However, the ledger does contain a running account from 1814 with Richard Borden—most likely Lizzie’s great-grandfather—on folio 41, for an account dated 1814-16. Aaron purchased bushels of potatoes and salt from Lizzie’s ancestor, and paid for them with his own labor by hoeing on Richard’s farm. Much of the ledger records these kinds of labor transactions, often touching on the city’s maritime activities; he sometimes pays in oakum, and on 48 is paid “15 days wages on board the sloop Mechanick.”