Page 159 - 1843 Sales

October the 6.th. 1843 A Bests sale 159

1 strechers and swingle trees . . . $1.06

2 1 shovel plough . . . 1.88

3 1 pich fork . . . .31

4 1 little spining wheal . . . .50

5 1 lot of yarn . . . .81

6 1 oats stack . . . .62

7 1 pair of gears . . . 4.06

8 1 spring colt . . . 16.58

John Briants . . . 25.82

Nov 11 1 one plain . . . $.10

2 1 drower knife . . . .50

3 1 hand saw . . . 1.81

4 2 files rasp and punch . . . .40

5 1 cradle . . . .31

Nov 31 Joshua Burches sale . . . 3.11

1 1 cag of soap . . . $.44

2 1 stone churn . . . .85

3 2 calvs . . . 2.12

. . . 3.41

. . . 32.35

I got my sask 36 lites . . . 2.25

Sep 19 Joshua green got 5 1/2 of butter . . . 0.55

Sep 27 do. to 4 bounds and ten ounces . . . 0.46

Oct 28 do to 4 3/4 of butter at ten cts . . . 0.48

potatoes 1 bushel . . . 0.25

Oct 20 twou pounds of butter . . . 0.25

one bushel of pottatoes . . . 0.18

Page 70 - June 11, 1839 - Road Work

June the 11 .1839 Page 70

Tue 11 Cloudy this morning and thunders some

in the west it has very much the appearance

of rain but dident it broke away and the

sun shoen out and turned quite warm in the

after noon it looked some like rain but soon

broke away and got clear and nice in the fore

noon I groubed breash in the after noon I

plowed my corn but very wet H. r L

Wed 12 Clear this morning and quite warm and

pleasant and nice it continued clear with the

exception of a few flying clouds till late in the

evening it rose a very dark cloud in the north

west after night it rained I made a mistake it

dident rain it only thundered and lightning

I plowed in the corn all day father and mother

went on a visit to Aarons Yarnalds 1839

Thu 13 Cloudy this morning and it rained some two

or three times the l sun shoen out of the time

it has some notion of continuing on I think

I plowed till in the evening then I quit father

helped me plow desperate cool for the season 183

Fri 14 Cloudy this morning and raining some it

has turned some cooler than it has been for

some considerable length of time it broke

away and got quite clear and pleasant I worked

on the road under Egbert Patterson he had

about twenty hands a working on the road

Sat 15 Clear this morning and quite pleasent it is

a few flying clouds over us quite warm I

plowed in my corn all day Mr. Green and

his companion cam out ond visit from town

I got my calf hom from Mr. Barneses 1839

Sun 16 Clear this morning and quite pleasent I

went down to Mr. Pattersons to meeting and then

hom and back to Mr. Gening to meeting at four

O clock then I went to Mr. barnards to meeting

after night S. R K staid with L. P

all night moe more at the tine 1839

Page 2 - More Doodles, Other Hands

44 + 14 + 53 = 1.11

16 x 2 = 32 + 28 = 60 x 8 = 480

28 + 28

12 x 5 = 60 + 7 = 67 - 4 = 63

17 + XX

I paid John Shigley

$25 00 and on the day

of the october Election

16 60 Making in all $42,10

J W Ieland

postoffice rjch Ieland

Janes vill Brimen County Iowa

I Alexander Sony

ABCDEFGHIJ

Even green Postoffice

Dibjke County Ioway

Yo Nonnon Janes

28 - 4 = 24

Prassers postoffice enecott

Sim Co Iowa

12 by 16

10 by 12

14 by 14

Journal of Harmon Lucas - Cover

The Journal of Harmon Lucas

The journal of Harmon Lucas measures some 170 millimeters wide by 395 millimeters in length and 17 millimeters thick. The pages are divided by vertical lines at intervals of, counting from the left, 29, 129 and 146 millimeters. There is a margin of 19 millimeters at the top of each page, followed by horizontal lines at regular intervals of 9 millimeters to the bottom of the page, for a total of 44 lines. The folios are folded in half to form quires of twenty pages and sewn together with cord. It is covered, front and back, in thick cardboard. There are 105 leaves surviving, in part or whole, for a total of 210 pages.

I first saw Harmon's journal in the weeks after my grandmother, Zula Lucas Harris, died in 1966. I can only guess how she came into possession of the book. I can safely assume she got it from her father, William Lucas. Before that all is conjecture. Zula died at the age of seventy and was born in Kokomo, Indiana. Zula had one older brother, Chester, and their mother was Rebecca Ridgeway Lucas, who came to Indiana from Tennessee. So they came from the right part of the country, but William could not have been a descendant of Harmon. Harmon had only two girl children, Mary and Jane, neither of whom carried on the Lucas name to any more children. Harmon was born on July 12, 1819, in Ohio, he died on February 26, 1846, in Tippicanoe County, and his widow, Maria, died in Jones County, Iowa 48 years later to the day. Harmon's parents were Benjamin Lucas and Mary Rogers, and he had several siblings. My best guess would be that the book came through Harmon's brother, Curtis, who in turn may have been William's father. I have not investigated my family history all that well. Anyone who wants to do the research for me is welcome. I know that the family, William, Rebecca, Chester, and Zula Lucas, moved to Riverside in Southern California around 1900, and were joined by some cousins who became railroad men and firefighters in Bakersfield, California. Many members of the Lucas family still reside near Lafayette, Indiana. Other descendents have dispersed around the globe, and I have brought Harmon's book from Southern California, through Nevada, to Oregon.

Harmon did not seem very concerned about spelling, punctuation was almost unknown, and he used capitals erratically. He often employed shorthand grammar, and he ended sentences abruptly at the edge of the paper. At the time that he bought and wrote in the book, he seems to have been motivated first by an effort to record the weather. Other observations crept in with time. Then he turned to recording his financial transactions, and working up ideas about the Methodist church. Later still the book became a child's playtoy and scratch pad, with scribbles and ripped pages. Some pages have been torn out entirely! Harmon probably had no idea he was leaving a record for posterity. Given that this is not a photo reproduction, I have still tried to preserve the general format and his idiosyncratic spelling.

The inside of the front cover has been used at various times, by various hands, in ink and pencil, to practice penmanship, to calculate sums, and to take notes. For the sake of completeness, the doodlings recorded there, from top to bottom, and left to right, somewhat resemble the following:

___________________________________________________

2035

900 + 900 + 500 + 500 + 700 + 500 = 4000 + 250 + 400 = 5050

300 + 2.800

John Graves wood act 15

Marshfield Postoffice by Thomas Green

125 + 60 = 185

Franklin Poseland

Franklin Joselanel

Mary Mary