A workbook once belonging to Andrew Halsey of Halsey House, Southampton, Long island
Page number: 234.
Size: 33 x 21 cms or 13 x 8 inches.
Thomas Halsey (1592 -1678) and his family were amongst the first people to colonise Southampton in Long island. He arrived from England with his wife and four children in the late 1630s. In the late 1650s he built a house on land he's acquired between Lake Agawam and Main Street. This original house burnt down but another had replaced it by 1688. It is this house that has survived, in different configurations in Southampton to the present day. It now functions as a museum. The house came to be owned by Elias Pellatreau (1757-1831) so I cannot be absolutely certain as to whether the images in this workbook show the Halsey House. I cannot be certain that Andrew Halsey, a descendent of Thomas Halsey, lived in the house when this book was created; though one of the images would certainly suggest as much.
Every page of the ledger is covered with complex mathematics entitled, amongst other things, The Measurement of Cloth, Factors Allowances Commonly Called Commission, Rebate or Discount, Barter, Loss and Gain and Reduction of The Currencies of The United States. Geometrical problems are resolved at the rear, penmanship is practised and advice given. Whilst the whole is decorated with elaborate script and occasional patterns, some pages are rather playfully decorated with images of ships, whimsical images and what I presume to be Halsey House.
Condition: The cover is worn as are the edges of the first of the pages in the volume in particular. there is a stitched repair to the cover. The binding is loose. All pages are present but the thread that holds the center of the book together has come loose. The tips of almost all of the pages have been cut off. The bottom half of one page is missing. one page is torn. Not all pages are numbered; three pages appear to have been removed.
