Sep 28, 2017 - Sale 2455

Sale 2455 - Lot 157

Price Realized: $ 228
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400
(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
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Additional Details

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."