All are pocket sized booklets. 1863 “Pass Book” is slender pamphlet in wraps, 1864 booklet is an unlined, randomly dated and coverless. 1865 diary is complete with lined, dated entries and leatherette cover. All entries are in pencil.

Miss Esther Richardson reveals herself a young unmarried woman living at home, possibly in New Hampshire. [1863 “Passbook” bears the printers mark of “G. & G.H. Tilden, Booksellers….Keene, N.H.”] Her entries treat of domestic family doings, and the comings and goings of various neighbors. The Civil War barely intrudes in her writing, which is highly fluid, rendered in a small, though legible hand. Her April 9, 1865 entry, however, does mention Lee’s surrender and her feelings concerning the end of the war:

“Sabbath evening, Apr. 9^th. Rob…has been out to ride and has brought back news that Genl. Lee and his whole army is captured. Enlisting is stopped and those who have not already gone to the army are discharged. Oh it is almost too good to be true, but I do hope so much that it is. Surely ours should be a grateful nation, but oh the broken hearts and families.”…….Then on April 16^th, “I am so sorry that our President is shot and died yesterday morning. The nation has lost one of its best men.”

An intriguing set of diaries that illustrate that the Civil War did not touch the Union home front as hard as it did in the south. Invites further research. [This set of Diaries also includes the 1914 pocket diary of Mrs. Emma Danforth of Fairfax, Vermont, whose appears unrelated to Esther Richardson, and whose entries are commonplace observations about the weather.]

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