Diary of Margaret Appleton Holyoke Mascarene, 1759.

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Diary of Margaret Appleton Holyoke Mascarene, 1759.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/730057443

The diary is written on interleaved blank pages in a 1759 almanac. The regular, brief diary entries are attributed to Margaret Appleton Holyoke Mascarene. Some entries, beginning in April, appear to be written in a different hand. The second author may have been Mascarene's sister Priscilla Holyoke (1739-1782) given that the entries mention visits by "Pater Mater Epes" and "Bets & Nancy." Priscilla, Margaret, Elizabeth ("Betsy"), and Anna ("Nancy) were the four daughters of Edward and Margaret Holyoke. After Margaret Holyoke's death in 1740, Edward Holyoke married Mary Whipple Epes, the widow of Symond Epes. Entries are typically only a few words and record domestic activities including childrearing, travel, house guests, family illness, and deaths in the community. Mascarene references British victories in the French and Indian War and the measles outbreak of 1759, including the illness of Faro, who may have been Mascarene's slave. Notably, the diary includes entries chronicling the care of Mascarene's newborn son by a nurse. Three interleaved pages at the end of the diary contain a list of expenses and payments and a list of clothing sent to the wet nurse Mrs. Cherry.

.01 cubic feet (1 volume)

Harvard University Archives.

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8100636

Harvard University Archives.

Related Entities

There are 3 Entities related to this resource.

Holyoke family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68t42bd (family)

Ames, Nathaniel, 1708-1764

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j96bt2 (person)

Mascarene, Margaret Holyoke, 1726-1792

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p05ptz (person)

Margaret Appleton Holyoke Mascarene (1726-1792), the eldest child of Harvard's ninth president, Edward Holyoke, and his second wife, Margaret Appleton, was born on September 22, 1726 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On August 9, 1750, Margaret married Cambridge shipping merchant John Mascarene (1722-1779; Harvard AB 1741). In 1752, Margaret Mascarene returned to her parents' house in Cambridge while John Mascarene traveled to England in an unsuccessful attempt to collect pension money due to his fat...