Written by Hand MANUSCRIPT AMERICANA

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[VERMONT, Waites River]
SAWYER, John. Diaries.
2 volumes, one each for 1884 and 1889.
Trades diaries of an accomplished, and in-demand, hired man and dairy farmer who graded roads, chopped wood, laundered clothes for hire, cleaned barns, built structures, etc. Detailed finances provided for activities, as well as church and prayer meetings he attended, and various boarding houses in which he stayed. Excellent documentation of one man's seemingly unceasing Yankee work ethic.

[Left] John Sawyer's for-hire activities included " work for Mrs Laird clapboarding shed / digging Potatoes 2 days / work on Shed 11. . . / all not paid 13 days for to date / AM work moving the remains of Newton Morgan / PM work for Mrs L clapboarding shed." Daughter Eve "...went to H C Richardsons to a husking of corn" while the day previous Saywer "attend[ed] Church at Waits River / Vail preached."

In April 1889 Sawyer provided a "Financial report" pertaining to "Expenses moving S C Vail" from Topsham to Waits River as well as "Expenses of water at Parsonage."

[Above] John Sawyer listed addresses in his 1889 diary in Waits River [sic], Vermont as well as 20 Arsenal Street, Montpelier, Vermont—a distance of almost 23 miles along modern highways. The number under the addresses appears to be a later docketing.

[Below] Complexities of rural 19th century inter-dependent living are clearly detailed by the November 11 entry. Sawyer is both a landlord and tenant, and pays exactly twice as much for his residence as his tenant paid him for her's.

Sawyer's diaries are rich in such time-specific terms as stove pipe, spectacles, and shawl. Shawls were worn by men and women alike in the 1800s as protective winter garments, and had not yet become gendered.

[Left] These pay envelopes suggest, based on "Time of work" and :"Amt. due, that John Sawyer worked for the shoe store of Marvin & Wilson in Barre or Montpelier, Vermont for a rate of 12-1/2 cents an hour.

Such ephemera as this are often found preserved in manuscript diaries, and they offer a view of the diarist relatively more objective than that of the writer himself . In Sawyer's case, it can safely be said that, based on his records, he was a man concerned with money and how to make it.

More on this Sawyer manuscript diary. . .

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