Manuscript Group 942, Ebenezer Sayre (1749 – 1822), Farmer, and Jane E. Sayre (d. 1857) Daybook / Scrapbook, 1805-ca. 1840
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Manuscript Group 942, Ebenezer Sayre (1749-1822), Farmer, and Jane E. Sayre (d. 1857)
Daybook / Scrapbook, 1805-ca. 1840, 0.2 linear feet / 1 volume
Call Number: MG 942 (os)
A daybook kept by Ebenezer Sayre, a farmer in Chatham Township, Morris County, New Jersey. Most of the pages are obscured by a scrapbook made by Sayre’s granddaughter, Jane E. Sayre in the mid to late 1830s.
Ebenezer Sayre, the son of Mary and Ebenezer Sayre (d. 1765), was probably born in Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1749. He was a farmer and landowner in Hanover and Chatham Townships, New Jersey and lived in Columbia Bridge (now Afton), Morris County, New Jersey. On April 28, 1773, Ebenezer Sayre married Lois Potter (1757-1800), with whom he had thirteen children: Sarah (1774-1817), Betsey (1775-1798), James (1776-1848), David Cooper (1778-1780), John (1781-1813), Benjamin (1783-1822), Samuel (1785-1863), Mary (1787-1826), Ebenezer (1790-1872), Rhoda (1790-1855), Elias (1794-1837), Isaac Potter (1796-1796), and Rachel (1799-1852). After Lois Sayre’s death, Ebenezer married Charity Cooper (1767-1833) on October 15, 1801. Charity and Ebenezer had three children together: Susan Cooper (1802-1877), Daniel Cooper (1804-1858), and David Martin (1807-1876). Ebenezer Sayre died at age seventy-five on July 27, 1822.
Elias Sayre (1794-1837), Lois and Ebenezer’s son, was probably a farmer in Afton, New Jersey. On December 11, 1817, he married Abigail Hedges (1799-1888), with whom he had two daughters: Justina Louisa and Jane Ewing. Jane Ewing Sayre never married and died on January 15, 1857 at the age of thirty-five.
Sources:
Banta, Theodore M. Sayre Family: Lineage of Thomas Sayre, A Founder of Southampton (The De Vinne Press: New York, 1901), pgs. 147-148, 359-360.
The source of this collection is unknown.
This collection consists of one volume belonging to Ebenezer Sayre and then his granddaughter Jane E. Sayre, used from 1805-ca. 1840. The volume contains daybook entries from Ebenezer Sayre’s farm, dating from 1805-1830, which record payments received by Sayre for his labor and products. The entries describe the type of work performed, products sold, prices, equipment used, and the labor force, which included children. The majority of the pages in the volume, however, were subsequently used as a scrapbook by Jane E. Sayre, who pasted newspaper clippings of poetry, essays, and editorials, and pages of handwritten poetry over the daybook entries. The newspaper articles and handwritten poetry date from the mid to late 1830s.
Manuscript Group 1494, Scrapbook Collection
See other farmers’ records/papers.
Processed by Irina Peris, June 2000 as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
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