Together with his business records and family papers, Lane's diaries form an important part of the New Hampshire Historical Society's collections. Basing his narrative on careful study of this rich documentary legacy, historian Jerald E. Brown explores the life, career, and motivations of one man and his family. In a preliminary essay, editor Donna-Belle Garvin introduces Lane's world to the reader. The many illustrations of leatherworking, farming, surveying, buildings, bridges, crops, animals, and gravestones draw readers into the complex world and work that shaped Lane and his family. This fascinating tale is the most complete account now available of the life of a colonial New England artisan and tradesman.
Individual lives provide the raw material for writen history.
We learn much about people from personal records that have survived. Samuel Lane was a consummate record keeper. Readers of this skillfully packaged volume will learn more about daily life in early New Hampshire than from any previous publication. They will also learn to appreciate the extraordinary accomplishments of an ordinary man. He now heads the history department at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore.