Ella’s 1874 Pocket Diary

pimg src=http://z.about.com/d/genealogy/1/0/w/Y/Ella-1874-diary---memorandu.jpg alt=1883 Postscript from Ella's 1874 Pocket Diary width=170 height=270 align=right border=0 hspace=5 /After leaving a fun antique store in Fort Ann, New York, this past Sunday, my husband surprised me with a great early Valentine's Day present - an 1874 pocket diary filled with handwritten entries. A first glance offered no name or location for the author, but did mention other names and places throughout the pages. I was instantly intrigued.../p pFlipping through pages in the diary, one of the first things I ran across was a postscript near the end, stating that it was written nine years after the rest of the diary entries./p blockquotepiNine years have passed and I am a contented happy wife and mother among these very people among whom I spent a large share of this year/i [apparently referring to the year 1874 when she kept this diary]i; the same yet has changed. 8 years ago Emma Martin passed triumphly over the river and had an abundant entrance into the mansion over there. Her husband Gurdon Martin is now my husband. I am living in her home, and would that I was taking care of her three boys. I am the mother of four children of whom one little girl goes to school in the same schoolhouse where I taught so long ago. Of my scholars, Albert, Barnet, Alma, Satira and Lucy are married. All are living Christian lives except Will Bohonon, Charles Roberts and Charlie Davis./i/p /blockquote pI wasn't sure on the spelling of Gurdon or if I was just misreading Gordon, but it turned out to indeed be Gurdon which made my search much easier. I began by searching the 1880 census for a Gurdon/Gordon Martin in the Vermont/New York area because Barre, Vermont was mentioned as a nearby town in one of the diary entries, and the diary itself was found just across the New York/Vermont border in Fort Ann, New York. Sure enough, a simple search brought up a Gurdon Martin living in Williamstown, Orange County, Vermont, with wife M. Ella, and five children from the age of 10 down. M. Ella was listed as keeping house and not as a school teacher, but this wasn't surprising given that she was married and had four children of her own by this point if she is indeed my diary's author./p p a href =http://genealogy.about.com/b/a/256393.htmRead more.../ap style="background:#f5f3ef;border: 1px solid #d5d0bf;padding:.5em;"a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hczu=http://genealogy.about.com/b/2010/02/09/ellas-1874-pocket-diary.htm"Ella's 1874 Pocket Diary/a originally appeared on a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hczu=http://genealogy.about.com/"About.com Genealogy/a on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 11:01:30./ppa href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hczu=http://genealogy.about.com/b/2010/02/09/ellas-1874-pocket-diary.htm"Permalink/a | a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/1hczu=http://genealogy.about.com/b/2010/02/09/ellas-1874-pocket-diary.htm#gB3"Comment/a | a href="http://genealogy.about.com/gi/pages/shareurl.htm?PG=http://genealogy.about.com/b/2010/02/09/ellas-1874-pocket-diary.htmzItl=Ella's 1874 Pocket Diary"Email this/a/p