Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

Saltonstall, Gurdon.

G. Saltsonstall’s Ledger from Anno 1706 to 1724. [Ledger of the governor of the Colony of Connecticut, dos-à-dos with a 17th-century manuscript on fortifications.]

[New London, CT, 1707–1724]; [N.p., 1600s]. Folio (14.5” x 10.25”), original vellum with manuscript title in ink at upper cover. 74 pp. manuscript in ink, of which the ledger is 48 pp. and the fortification manuscript is 26 pp. Both evidently incomplete: ledger lacking some 7 initial leaves, fortification manuscript lacking some 9 initial leaves (page numbering commences at p. 17) as well pp. 33–34 and at least one final page. CONDITION: Overall good, first leaf of ledger detached and second leaf mostly excised, with 6” x 3” remnant, the two manuscripts split into two separate sections, each still attached to binding.

An important dos-à-dos manuscript comprising the personal and governmental ledger of a long-standing governor of the Connecticut Colony, and, in a different and earlier hand, a technical treatise on fortifications—together providing an extraordinarily granular portrait of material life, legislative expenses, and defensive concerns in colonial America.

This unusual manuscript comprises two distinct yet thematically linked parts. The first half is the personal and official ledger of Gurdon Saltonstall (1666–1724), governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1708 until his death. Saltonstall, formerly a New London pastor and close friend and agent of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop, meticulously recorded his financial transactions related to both his personal life and his governorship during a period that included Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713). The other manuscript is a technical treatise on fortifications, likely dating to the late seventeenth century. This section, in a different hand, reflects the early modern science and applied mathematics behind defensive structures—a potentially fitting reference for a colonial leader tasked with frontier defense, even if the fortification construction described was far more sophisticated than that of the wooden forts typically constructed in colonial America.

Gurdon Saltonstall was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, to a politically active colonial family. He earned a B.A. an M.A. from Harvard, and became Congregational minister at New London in 1688. Upon Winthrop’s death in November of 1707, the General Assembly elected Saltonstall governor (despite his lack of political experience), and he officially accepted the position on January 1st, 1708. The enactment of a special law enabled him to be re-appointed at the scheduled election in May, and Saltonstall would go on to effect changes in Connecticut’s political role, religious life, and educational system. Early in his first term, Saltonstall oversaw the appointment of the colony’s first printer, Thomas Short (brother-in-law of Boston printer Bartholomew Green). A political and social conservative with a firm belief in established authority, Saltonstall strengthened colonial ties to the Crown, especially by increasing the colony’s support for England during Queen Anne’s War. He also promoted the Saybrook Platform, a meeting of twelve ministers and four citizens at Saybrook that resulted in a more strictly organized Congregational Church, as well as the relocation of the colony’s fledgling college from Saybrook to New Haven, where it would later be named “Yale” after its primary benefactor. Saltonstall was married three times, first to Jerusha Richards (d. 1697), then to Elizabeth Rosewell (d. 1710), and finally to Mary (Whittingham) Clarke (d. 1730). He had ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.

Saltonstall’s Financial Ledger (1707–1724)

The ledger covers Saltonstall’s governance years in detailed records of public and private transactions, providing a rare, granular look at colonial society and the business undertaken by an early Connecticut governor. Entries pertaining to his public service include purchases of paper (the first governmental transaction recorded in this volume, dated just a week after his official acceptance of the governorship), disbursements of his own salary, various transactions with colony treasurer Joseph Whiting, and a wide variety of payments, made from his own funds, to Thomas Couch. Couch evidently served as his aide, and his work here encompassed everything from repairing bacon hooks to accompanying Saltonstall on journeys “in the Countrys Service.” (Couch appears twice in The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, receiving payment directly from government coffers in 1710 for “his attending on the Governour” among other services). Saltonstall’s most frequent destination was Boston, but the ledger also references journeys to New Haven and Hartford (where General Assembly meetings were held), as well as Saybrook and Albany.

A detailed account of the auditing of his expenses and a re-calculation of his 1713 transactions—made in order to correct the colonial record and obtain proper reimbursement for official expenses—illuminates the rigours of colonial auditing. During the latter years of Queen Anne’s War, Saltonstall’s official transactions reflect Connecticut’s defense initiatives, embracing payments noted in the ledger to support “the Regiment” stationed at Albany, as well as “marching subsistence of Our Company of Indians,” which, according to the Public Records, comprised sixty members under the command of an English officer and paid from the colonial purse. These were probably members of the Mohegan Tribe, with whom the British had historically allied. One “John Hawke” brought a horse to Saltonstall at Saybrook, and is also noted as receiving “his wages as Souldier.” Notable, too, are Saltonstall’s transactions with the man he appointed as Connecticut’s first printer, Timothy Green, for reams of paper, and Lieut. Col. John Livingston (1680–1719/20), who married the daughter of Fitz-John Winthrop and participated in attempts to take Canada during Queen Anne’s war. Livingston commanded companies of Native soldiers on several occasions, and it was perhaps to outfit members of these companies that, late in the war, Livingston, Saltsonstall, and “Col. Whiting” entered into partnership for “8 lls 3/4 Deer Skins.”

Interwoven with official business are Saltonstall’s personal transactions, which are organized by name and make up the majority of the records here. References to his brother-in-law Benjamin Alford (of Boston), his son-in-law Richard Christophers (Assistant Judge of the Superior Courts, and Sheriff of New London), his wife, his children, and many others, including craftsmen’s apprentices, several high-ranking members of the Connecticut militia, and women from whom he purchased goods or services, create a nuanced portrait of his social, material, and economic circle. Personal expenses embrace everything from grocery and household items (ribbon and “Indian corn”) to a variety of construction and agricultural work (“setting up the Childrens Bedstand by candle light,” “lathing in my Garret and plastring it”). Among the few women with their own sections in the ledger (others being most often mentioned as “wives” under their husbands’ accounts) is “Mrs. Elizabeth Hollam” (elsewhere spelled “Hallam”), who purchased handkerchiefs, ivory combs, and raisins, among other items, paying Saltsonstall with “sundries.” One of the more personally rich and engaging transactions recorded is with Thomas Couch, for a 1722 “allowance made him for some work wc [i.e., which] he did for my wife, uncertain what, but he said it was done to ballance this account as he intended; and also that I was consenting; tho he never brought in any acct of the work nor set it down himself as he declares.”

Several entries pertain to enslaved “Negroes,” documenting the practice and social context of slavery in colonial New England. Saltonstall paid “Mr Thomas Shephard,” who rented his farm at Branford from at least 1709 to 1717, for “repairing the Negroes Cloaths…they were out of Cloaths when returned, very much,” and in 1713 charged Shephard for “Cush who came to me Nov. 27…and Peter who came a little before.” Owning slaves was, of course, a common practice in Colonial New England, and one that, according to the Public Records of 1708, caused some problems for Connecticut settlers: under Saltonstall’s governorship, a law was enacted to prevent “Indians, malattoes [sic] and negro servants” from giving “money and goods” to anyone without their owner’s permission, lest they be encouraged “to steal from their masters and others” (Hoadly, p. 52).

SOME REPRESENTATIVE LEDGER ENTRIES:

Thomas Couch: “board from March 22d to May 7th, when He went with me to Hartford, 6 weeks & 2 days…Ditto from May 26th (when I returned from Election at Hartford) to June 23rd (when he went with me to Boston) being 28 days or 4 weeks, in all 10 weeks, 2 days”; “1 quarter of a Year Rent of my shop from Sept. 22 1713 to Dec. 22 1713”; “Mending a Bridle…Bacon hooks…Mending of a Gun…Cock pin for Andrew’s Gun…a hook for the tea pot”; “making and pulling teeth of Garden Rake”; “cleansing the Chirurgery tools, w[ich] were in the publick chest, & very much overrun with Rust”; “4 days 1/2 in a Journey to Branford & return…providing him a Horse & bearing his expenses”; “Your Wives tending Andrew.” 

Capt John Hough: “By allowance made him for getting some timber towards a barn (tho it hapned [sic] most of it afterwards to be damnified by fire, & of wc [i.e., which] there is now 14 pcs remaining about Mill pond, & between that and Goodman Darts.”

Ebenezer Griffin: “To a Deer Skin 2lb 3 Ounces”; “To 2 dressed Calve Skins wc [i.e., which] Mr Edgecomb dressed for me”; “ “To 2 Ounces Cloves…Ditt. nutmegs…11 yd black Ribbon…24 yd Scarlet Ribbon”; “By a pair of Shoes for Sarah”; “By mending a side saddle” l “By a pr of shoes for K[atherine?]…for Nat…for Gurdon”

John Dunn: “To 8 weeks board at my house the last winter, when He was out of my Work, and wrought for other people”; “[By] making of one Room in the Garret…making one Window Frame with Casements, & all Fixed…hanging up 3 Pictures 1/2 day”; “By making Andrews Coffin…& a Cupboard in Cellar” “By making a Coffin for Ruths child”; “By plaining the Hall Floor”

Lt. Col. John Livingston: “To 12 barrels of Cydar dd you by Colo Wm Whiting”; “To 7 certificates to go out of the Colony, in the Case of the Negro Jane, at 2 [pence] each”; “To affidavits with seal”; “By the Ballance of an Account in Partnership for Deer Skins (between Col. Whiting and him & me, made up this day), wc [i.e., which] is due from me to Col. Livingston”

Mr Joseph Rosewell of Madera & Comp.: “To Freight of 1 1/2 [?] of Wine, as [?] Custom…To men & a Cart to carry Ditto to a Cellar : To C[e]llar Room from Nov to March”; “Acct of Sale of…Madera Wine recd from on board of the Sloop Mary & Elizabeth, James Killing[? Master, for acct of Mr Joseph Rosewell & Company. NLon. Nov:24:1713.”

Manuscript on Fortifications

This treatise, titled “The First Book of Fortification of the Regular Workes,” is a technical manual on the design and construction of defensive structures. The volume picks up in the middle of the fourth chapter of the text, which is replete with geometric calculations, diagrams, tables, and formulas. Chapters cover “the Grounds & foundation of Fortification Namely, the Defence, according to wh[i]ch all the Aforecited Lines & Angles must bee Conformed,” “the Division of the Workes according the Lines, & the usuall[?] man[ua]ls of fortification most approved,” and so on. The manuscript is presumably—though not clearly—copying a published work (our google searches of the text have not yielded a match) and likely made its way to the colonies in the hands of a military engineer. It is possible that Saltonstall’s connection to the manuscript can be traced through his close relationship with Governor Fitz-John Winthrop, the son of John Winthrop, Jr., an early governor of Connecticut Colony who hired Lion Gardiner, an English engineer and “master of works of fortification,” to construct fortifications along the Connecticut River, including at Saybrook, where he remained in command from 1635 to 1639 (Chet, p. 14). 

Security in the colonies was an ever-pressing issue, with threats from rival European naval powers on the coast and from Native Americans inland. Connecticut regularly appointed officers and allocated money for the repair and maintenance of its forts, and following “the stunning Indian attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts”—about a hundred miles from New London and just sixty up the Connecticut River from Hartford—on February 24th, 1704, “the Connecticut General Assembly issued orders for the fortification of the colony’s frontier towns” (Chet, p. 74). Although the log forts, garrison houses, and block houses comprising most colonial defensive structures during this period might seem a far cry from the imposing stone structures whose fundamentals are apparently outlined in this fortification manuscript, several stronger forts—made of stone, though still simple—adhered more closely to European conventions. Likewise, most military leaders in the early Colonial period acquired their training, experience, and reference libraries in England (see Chet, pp. 14, 71–72). In any case, the presence of this fortification text, however partial, alongside Governor Saltonstall’s accounts lends an intriguing dimension to this volume and merits further research.

Rare evidence at the intersection of personal and public life in colonial America shedding light on early Connecticut economics, material culture, and government procedure, while echoing as well the security preoccupations of the colonies.

REFERENCES: Hoadly, Charles J. The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut from October, 1706, to October, 1716 (Hartford, 1870); Chet, Guy. Conquering the American Wilderness : The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003); Eames, Steven C. Rustic Warriors : Warfare and the Provincial Soldier on the New England Frontier, 1689–1748 (NYU Press, 2011).

Item #7568

Price: $45,000.00

Add to Wish List