An Almanac for America

Almanacs have been in existence since at least the second millennium BCE; their annual predictions of weather and other calendar-related natural phenomena were vital tools used by numerous professions, including farmers, sailors, and astronomers. When Europeans began to settle on the American continent in large numbers, the colonists needed almanacs that were aligned for to their particular area of the world.

The first American almanac for New England was printed in 1639 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the second document printed in the English colonies in America. In the mid-1700s, an almanac published by Nathaniel Ames became the the most popular brand for nearly fifty years. A medical doctor by trade, Ames was known as a bit of a renaissance man as well as an eccentric. In 1725, when Ames was just seventeen, he published the first edition of his almanac; after his death in 1764, his son continued publishing the almanac for another ten years.

One of the utilitarian modifications that 18th-century colonists made to their almanacs was to interleave blank pages between the printed pages. On those sheets, they would record all sorts of information that was relevant not only to the weather but also to their immediate lived experience, including deaths, births, marriages, and other community occurrences. Here in Special Collections, we have a run of Ames almanacs from 1741 until 1762. Nearly every single printed page is interleaved with a previously blank one that now contains copious notes about the actual weather, deaths, births, and other goings-ons. We don't know who the original owner was, but he was clearly a resident of Portsmouth, NH: he mentions among other things the death of the minister of Portsmouth's South Church, Rev. William Shurtleff III, on May 9, 1747.

To journey back in time and space through the eyes of a colonial New Englander, come to Rauner and ask to see Rare AY53 .A8.