Hannah Hart Account Book, ca. 1800-1842 – S1487
Provenance: The Portsmouth Athenaeum purchased the Hannah Hart account book in September 2016
Citation: Hannah Hart Account Book (S1487), Portsmouth Athenaeum
Size: 1 volume
Access: No restrictions
Processed by: Susan Stowe Kindstedt, 2017
Scope and Content:
135pp. account book belonging to Hannah Hart, ca. 1800-1842.
Historical Note
Hannah Hart died in 1845 at the age of ninety-nine. Jacob Sheafe, Hannah’s father, bought a house on the corner of Penhallow and Daniel Streets in Portsmouth in 1791 and left it to his daughter. Hannah first married Hugh Henderson and, after his death, married William Hart, a mathematical instrument maker and a manufacturer of surveying equipment in Portsmouth. The couple lived in the house, which then became known as the Hart House. In one corner, they kept a small shop.
Three of William Hart’s account books and a collection of property deeds are held at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord, NH.
Entries include sales of textiles, the purchase of goods, including from Abraham Isaac, “the first Jew in Portsmouth,” and business accounts, many with local women, the painting and guilding of her shop sign by John Gray, farm and real estate accounts.