Sidney George Fisher Diary at Mount Harmon, Cecil County, Md. 1809-1850, MS 1837

Fisher Mount Harmon Diaries

In December 1969, Mrs. Boden of Delaware and Maryland, gave the Maryland Historical Society $10,000 to edit the Fisher Mount Harmon Diaries. (Earlier Dr. Wainwright, Director of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania had edited the Philadelphia Diaries of Fisher - there is a copy in the MHS.)

Mr. Manakee and I read excerpts from the Mt. Harmon diaries and told Mrs. Boden that in general the content was rather dull and probably did not warrant publication. Nevertheless Mrs. Boden asked the Society to proceed with the work.

Dr. Sidney Fairbanks (transcriber of the latest render="italic">Archives volumes) was asked to transcribe and generally edit the diaries, and with this in view, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the owner of the diaries, provided the MHS with transcripts and a copyflow print of the originals. A fair amount of work was needed on the transcripts because of poor punctuation and other reasons.

Work began in May, but unfortunately the diary for 1844 was not in the transcripts of the copyflow, and Mrs. Boden said that undoubtedly Dr. Wainwright had hidden this year “because it negated a statement he had made in his Philadelphia book - a question of the whereabouts of a race track.”

Acrimonious correspondence and telephone calls then occurred between Mrs. Boden and the Maryland Historical Society. Mrs. Boden felt that the duty of the MHS was to write to Mr. Ingersoll, the original owner of the diaries, and demand that he order Dr. Wainwright to make the 1844 diary available. This Mr. Manakee refused to do, feeling that it was not the proper course. Dr. Wainwright had allowed Mr. Filby to visit the MS. section of the HSP, and he was allowed free access to the whole collection.

Perhaps in retrospect it would have been simpler to ask Mr. Ingersoll, “Was the 1844 diary render="italic">ever in the collection?” But [UNK] was not done, and finally in July 1970, Mr. Manakee told Mrs. Boden that the work had been stopped and that unexpended money would be returned to her.

But considerable work has been done by Dr. Fairbanks, and the MHS has a copy of the transcripts and of the originals.

The title of the collection should be called, “The Fisher Mount Harmon Diaries”, and information on them can be found in Dr. Wainwright's book. The entry should be treated as another collection and should be numbered.

P.W.F.

30 July 1970

Sidney George Fisher Diary at Mount Harmon, Cecil County, Maryland, 1837-1850

MS. 1837

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render="bold">Xeroxes of transcripts of the diary are also available in the collection.

Dates of the Diaries:

June 1837 through July 9, 1837

October and November, 1837

April 8 - April 10, 1938

June 23 - June 29, 1838

October 26 - November 5, 1838

April 9-15, 1839

November 8-18, 1839

April 1840

April and June 1841

November 1842

October 22, 1843

March 31, 1844

May-July 1844

December 1844-Feb. 1845

June 12, 1845

June and July 1845

November and December 1845

May 1846

June 1846

November and December 1846

May and June 1847

April-June 1848

April, May, June 1848 no. 2

January 1849

April 1849

June 1849

November 1849

March and April 1850

May 3-10 1850

May 1850

Diaries also include:

List of Perso nalities (not known who compiled this list)

Letters from and to Mrs. Harry Clark Boden IV to Mr. Manakee

Land certificates, indentures

Clerk's certificate of 1962 that these are true photostatic copies of the land instruments, signed by Andrew Seth, Cecil County (hand written indentures)

Throughout the xerox xcopy, personal names and places are circled. Not all are cross-referenced.