(NEW HAMPSHIRE) Oliver Holmes Diary of an exasperated France

Sale 2615 - Lot 204

Price Realized: $ 594

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(NEW HAMPSHIRE.) Oliver Holmes. Diary of an exasperated Francestown schoolteacher. [29] manuscript diary pages, plus [6] pages of family register entries in the rear extending through 1821. 4to, 7 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches, disbound, laid into a contemporary stiff paper wrapper signed by the author; minimal wear to contents. Various places, 17 March 1798 to 12 April 1799

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Oliver Holmes the 3rd (1777-1833) spent most of his life in Francestown, NH. He was not a close relation of the later poet or judge of the same name. At the time of this diary, he was an unmarried young man, working intermittently as a school teacher, farm laborer, sign painter, and runner of errands. The diary begins with a long and colorful account of an 8-day horseback journey to Boston and back through a heavy snowstorm. In Roxbury, MA he was compelled to share a bed with "a small lad . . . troubled with dreams or haveing drank too much liquor," and in Sharon, MA he delayed his departure to watch the drawing of a lottery.

Holmes resumed teaching at his local school on 7 January 1799, which inspired an interesting 3-page description of his frustrations: "Began the tiresome business of school teaching once more, for the paltry sum of ten dollars. . . . Repetitions must be made use of, repeated and forlorn. Repetitions loaded with threats and perplexities. Some will whisper & laugh, some pull hair and if you correct them, some shew their good breeding that they have been accustomed to at home."