Manuscript Group 89, Guide to the Sayers Coe, Farmer Records 1793-1911 (Bulk dates 1806-1850)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary
Historical Note
Scope and Content Note
Access Points
Related Material
Administrative Information

Container List

Record Books

Guide to the Sayers Coe, Farmer Records
1793-1911 (Bulk dates 1806-1850)
MG 89

The New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place
Newark, New Jersey 07102
Contact: NJHS Library
Phone: (973) 596-8500 x249
Email: library@jerseyhistory.org
URL: https://www.jerseyhistory.org
© 2005 All rights reserved.
The New Jersey Historical Society, Publisher
Inventory prepared by Kim Charlton as part of the “Farm to City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Finding aid encoded by Julia Telonidis. November 2005. Production of the EAD 2002 version of this finding aid was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Finding aid written in English.

Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Sayers Coe was born on April 26, 1772 to Bethia Grummon and Benjamin Coe. The family resided in Newark, New Jersey and all of the Coe’s eight children were born there. Benjamin Coe owned extensive lands and earned his living as a farmer.

Sayers (or Sears) Coe, Benjamin’s eldest surviving son, followed in his father’s footsteps. He became a farmer, settled in Newark with his family and eventually took over his father’s lands. He also engaged in contract labor such as cutting timber, carting stone, and building roads.

Sayers Coe married Sally (or Sarah) Davis (1774-1853) in 1795 and they had seven children together. Their children were: Isaac, Caroline, Joseph Davis, Moses Bruen, Abby, Harriet, and Aaron. Sayers Coe died on February 1, 1851 in Newark, New Jersey.

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Scope and Content Note

The collection is made up of two record books that were kept by Sayers Coe and possibly by his son Joseph D. Coe. The first volume is a daybook that runs from 1806 to 1851. The inscription on the inside page of this book reads, “Sayers Coe’s Book of account 1806.” The first section of the volume starts off with account entries dating from 1806-1822. These entries include the person’s name, the date, the work done, and the price. The work that is recorded includes such tasks as cutting timber, carting stone, and work done for the courthouse from 1810-1812.

The next section of the volume is a daybook dating from 1822-1851. The pages are headed with the title Daybook and each entry contains the date, the person, the job, and the payment. Typical jobs in this section include carting wood, stone, or clay; keeping a horse; scraping the Springfield turnpike; and they show the sales of such livestock products as beef, calfskin, veal, and lamb. There are a number of larger jobs (made up of multiple task entries) in this section of the volume. They are labeled by the name of the client, i.e. Aaron Coe, Charles Pierson, and the highway.

Sayers Coe provided some of the labor for the building of the Newark and Springfield turnpikes. Typical entries for the highway project, like those for June 7 and 10, 1826, are “to wagon and horses with 3 days labor” and “to oxen to plough.”

There are receipts glued into the rear of the volume. These include receipts for money paid and items bought, in addition to tax receipts.

The second volume is an account book and seems to have been used in conjunction with the daybook. The first pages of this volume are an index to the accounts. The actual accounts follow after this and date from 1798-1850. The pages are headed by the person’s name and each entry contains the date, the transaction, and the payment price. For the transaction, many entries simply read, “amount brought from daybook.” There is one account labeled, “expenses on building house on High St.”

Like the daybook, the accounts are followed with glued-in receipts from a number of different Coes, including Benjamin, Sayers, Joseph D., and Davis. The receipts range in date from 1793 to 1872.

Each volume also contained newspaper clippings. While there are a number of clippings from a newspaper column entitled “Jersey Genealogy,” it is unclear for some of the others what article was of interest to the saver. Those news clippings that are dated were published in 1897 and 1911; the others are undated. The daybook also contained four letters from 1896 written to Ernest E. Coe in regard to family genealogy. All of these items have been removed from the volumes and placed in box 1, folders 2 and 3.

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Access Points

The entries below represent persons, organizations, topics, forms, and occupations documented in this collection.

Subject Names:

Coe, Ernest.
Coe, Joseph.
Coe, Sayers, 1772-1851.

Subject Topics:

Agricultural industries–New Jersey–Newark.
Farmers–New Jersey–Newark.
Road construction workers–New Jersey–Newark.

Subject Places:

Newark (N.J.)

Document Types:

Account Books.
Clippings.
Correspondence.
Receipts.

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Related Material

Manuscript Group 291, Baldwin-Brown-Coe Family Papers

Manuscript Group 358, Newark Turnpike Company Records

Manuscript Group 1421, Coe Family Genealogy Collection

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as: Manuscript Group 89, Sayers Coe, Farmer Records, The New Jersey Historical Society.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Mabel P. Coe.

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Container List

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