Orderly Books as Yet Unidentified

The second group of books which follows relates to as yet unidentified volumes which were noted within Harriette Forbes’ New England Diaries, 1602-1800. This volume, published in 1923, represented the results of more than two decades of remarkable effort by Ms. Forbes. Focusing solely on the New England colonies, and later states, Forbes set herself the goal of surveying every diary kept by a New England resident or by persons passing through New England during the immense time frame of her focus. Resultantly, the published work is a veritable treasure trove of thousands of diaries, both published and in manuscript. This truly pioneering work also contains an appendix in which Forbes likewise surveyed military orderly books of New England units during the colonial, French and Indian, and Revolutionary Wars. Being remarkably thorough in her research, she uncovered hundreds of diaries and many orderly books which appear in no other bibliography. A portion of the orderly books which she cataloged and which remain as yet unidentified are within smaller institutional collections and will, as noted above, be a primary focus point for identification as this Index is finalized. In other cases, however, some listed orderly books will likely never be found. In making her work as complete as possible, Forbes surveyed unpublished diaries and orderly books which, in the 1920s, were within private possession, held either by descendant families or by manuscript collectors. Given the amount of time which has passed since Forbes’ survey, a number of these manuscript volumes, of course, have either been lost, have been deposited in unknown institutions, or remain within private hands not known to the compilers of this Index. Since the listing of such books would be useless to the present-day student, they have been eliminated from the current Index. (It should also be noted that the Index contains no Continental Army orderly books currently held by private parties as such books would be virtually if not literally inaccessible to any Index user.)