HISTORICAL NOTE

The Taft Collection consists of paper in the house at 232 Salem Street, Andover, which was built by David Gray about 1812.Most were generated by members of the Gray family, but there are also papers of unrelated individuals. 

The Gray family papers were written by David (4), 1762-1844, who built the house for his descendents. He married Sarah Cummings in 1788 and after her death married Rebecca Jenkins. By Rebecca he had, among other children, three sons: David (5) , 1798-1870; Samuel (5), 1803-1877 and Henry Jenkins (5), 1806-1881. Henry Jenkins Gray, who inherited the house, married the widow Lydia Sawyer and had two children: Henry (6), 1852-1929 and Alive (6), 1854-1927. Both lived in the house and died unmarried.

Abiel Person, M.D., 1756-1827, was born in the Byfield District of Newbury. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1779 and served the town on Andover from 1787 to his death. David Gray was administrator of his estate.  

William Griffin, Jr., 1766-1830, was a farmer in Andover. 
John Emerson, Jr. of  Reading was probably a lawyer. 
 

When the papers were given to the Society in two parts by the Rev. Frederick P. Taft, they were assigned Accession Numbers 1979.39 and 1982.34.

Used in the preparation of this note were the genealogies compiled by Charlotte Helen Abbott, the vertical files by family of the Andover Historical Society and the published Vital records of the town.  Rev. Frederick P. Taft provided additional information. 
 

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE 

The papers, which consist mainly of ledgers and day books, contain little personal information. They have been divided into ten parts, by families or institutions. 

The gray family material is the most extensive. It has been divided by family member. The first material is by David (4), 1762-1844.  there are two daybooks, from1794-1830 and 1811-1828 in which David recorded financial transactions as they occurred, before copying them into ledgers by debtor and creditor. There are two ledgers, which cover the years 1783-1794 and 1816-1841. The 1816-1841 volume, large and elaborate, has a separate index volume. There is also a separate book containing the meticulous accounts which David Gray kept in1827-8, while acting as administrator of the estate of Dr. Abiel Pearson. 

Following that is an account book, in which David Gray recorded deaths in the town from 1821 to 1834, sometimes with personal comments, and kept the accounts on estates for which he was responsible. There is a one volume account  book which he kept as “Select Man and Overseer”, 1816-1817. There is an account book from 1838-9 in which he recorded appraisals of the values of townspeople’s farm animals and accounts of people employed. There are  a few other papers, including two deeds. David gray, in concert with Amos Blanchard, brought land in Milford N.H. in 1804. gray sold his share in 1831.

David Gray (5), 1798-1870, left very few identifiable records in this collection. The only signed document is a school paper on the Solar System, undated probably from about 1815. tentatively assigned to David, because the handwriting is not Henry J. Gray’s, are loose pages of a diary, kept from 1826-1838. the entries are mostly simple lists of work performed, but there are occasionally comments, such as this one for May 2, 1827: “Clapboarding the house. Getting  out Dung. at night went to bed tired as a dog.” 

Henry Jenkins Gray provided the same kind of records: ledgers from 1832-1871, 1863-1866 and 1848-1864. The 1863-66 ledger is for the cider mill which he ran across from his house. There is also a note for $3200 from William Pierce to Leonard Woods, dated 1834, paid to Henry J. Gray on behalf  of the Cong. Chor. Soc. Woods was professor at Andover Theological Seminary, so the society was probably the Congregational Choral Society. His son, Henry produced a daybook  from 1896-1920, a ledger from 1871-1876 and a brief account book of farm matters, 1883-1897. 

An unidentified member of the Gray family , perhaps David (5), kept a ledger between 1813-1828. later in the century, about 1870, Henry Jenkins Gray’s children used the blank pages as a mathematics workbook and sketchbook.

Loose material has been removed from all these books and placed in folders following the volumes. Of interest is a series of letters 1892-6 to Henry Gray concerning some land in Salina, Kansas in which he had an investment. There is also a list, found in the ledger of the unidentified Gray men who worked as laborers “On the Turnpike” about 1820. 

The Cummings papers are in four parts. First is a family ledger. Samuelm1774-1816, studied bookkeeping in 1790 when he was sixteen, and began writing his examples in his large volume. Principles once learned, he put the book to use as a daybook, writing in financial transactions as they occurred. His son Charles did the same, so that the book contains material from 1790 and 1796-1838. Samuel brought a second book which was used in the same way between 1808 and 1852. Charles Cummings earned his living as a farmer and shoemaker. He also served his town in numerous capacities and among the loose papers found were tax bills from his time as town tax collector, some records concerning the Ballard Vale Machine Shop and a notice as clerk of the Holt School District from 1835. there is also a letter written in 1845 from a Mary M. Taylor of Amesbury to Cummings’ sister Mehitable Cummings, 1806-1874. 

David Gray presumably obtained Abiel Pearson, M.D.’s  financial ledger when he was chosen to administer Pearson’s estate in 1827. Part of his duty as administrator was to collect Pearson’s debts for benefit of the estate. It demonstrates the fact that country doctors of that period were chiefly paid in labor or in kind. With the ledger is a separate index volume.

William griffin kept a daybook from 1810 to 1823. he was basically a farmer, who, like the Gray’s, lent his hand to an amazing variety of tasks. 

John Emerson, Jr., of reading seems to have been acting as a lawyer when he wrote a letter to Samuel Merrell, Esq. of Andover. The letter was found in the William Griffin daybook. 

Pamelia Euton, otherwise unidentified, kept a mathematical ciphering notebook in 1830, which somehow found its way into the collection. There are a few other miscellaneous documents. In 1818, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court requested a JP in Rockingham County, N.H. to take testimony concerning the Revolutionary War service of Phinas Goodhue. Someone wrote an undated “Funeral Dirge” for an unidentified Mr. E.G. Of more interest is the copy of the Bill of Fare of people in the Alms House of an unidentified town in 1801. If this menu was indeed followed the paupers were well fed. Last is a petition from the board of the Holt School District in 1811, requesting permission to build a new school building. The Rev. Mr. Taft has furnished the following note dated March 12, 1979 concerning this document:

“The house mentioned in the petition was either the house of David Gray (Jr.) on the west side of Salem Street which stood somewhere near the “Spinning” or Weaving House; or most likely the Holt House on the east side of Salem Street near the site of the present house which was built in 1812-14. 

Processed by Mary F. Morgan, November 1982.