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Scope & Content

This collection contains 18 bound notebooks in 1 & 1/2 Hollinger boxes, and one FLAT box.

The books are the diaries of Henry Smals of Bridgewater; they begin in May, 1871, and proceed with almost daily entries (with occasional gaps of several weeks) until October, 1891. According to entries in the books, Henry Smals (also spelled Smalz and Smaltz) was born on August 4, 1810, and died March 19, 1892. Henry Smals is listed in the 1850 census for Rockingham County (p. 23) as a shoemaker with a real estate value of $1,000 and a wife, Mary, and six children. There is an entry for Henry Smalts in the 1860 census (p. 575) and for Henry Smalls in the 1870 census (p. 134) that give additional household details.

The diary entries are brief but chatty with small town news. There are mentions of acquaintances who are ill, various business transactions conducted in town, the movement of livestock and hay through town, projects ongoing in town, church activities, marriages, births, deaths, and other details of town life. The activities of colored people are occasionally noted. Throughout the diaries Smals had made small drawings or added illustrations clipped from newspapers. There are a few ledger-type entries for payments to Smals for labor or services. Someone added the date of Smals's death and a genealogical note on the last pages of Vol. 18.

The notebooks have apparently been rebound, perhaps several times, and some volumes have sections that are not in chronological order. The ink in some places has faded to illegibility.

Provenance
On deposit by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

Organization

Box 1
Vol. 1 May 1871 - June 1872           
       2 July 1872 - Dec. 1872 
       3 Jan. 1873 - Aug. 1873                               
       4 Aug. 1873 - Jan. 1875                          
       5 Jan. 1875 - Nov. 1875                          
       6 Jan. 1876 - April 1877                         
       7 April 1877 - Sept. 1877; incl. Dec. 1873, 1875; Jan. & Nov. 1875
       8 Oct. 1877 - April 1878
       9 May 1878 - Jan. 1879
      10 Feb. 1879 - Oct. 1879
      11 Oct. 1879 - May 1880 
      12 May 1880 - Jan. 1881
      13 Jan. 1881 - Nov. 1881 

Box 2

Vol.14 Nov. 1881 - May 1883
      

Box 3
Vol.15  May 1883 - July 1885
      16  July 1885 - April 1887
      17  April 1887 - April 1890
      18  April 1890 - Oct. 1891