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NATHANIEL OLIVER CORNWALL : 1830 - 1867 ORIGINAL ARCHIVE OF FIVE [5] MANUSCRIPT JOURNALS HANDWRITTEN BY NOTED CONNECTICUT MEDICAL DOCTOR AND DENTIST PLYING HIS TRADE IN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. On offer is an interesting archive of five [5] manuscript journals dated 1830 through 1867 handwritten by Dr. Nathaniel Oliver Cornwall (1816-1903) who was from Chatham, Connecticut, today known as East Hampton. Cornwall was a fascinating character would become a medical doctor and then later a dentist who spent a great deal of time in South America [a more detailed bio follows]. The archive will be of interest to historians and researchers of the era as the combined writings details on one hand the personal thoughts as the young man entered adulthood but also a reflection on the education he received. The archive details as follows: 1) 1833 Marbled covered Copy Book which is also a Day Book. The beginning pages are ledger style entries showing his expenses, inventory of his belongings, etc. Then there are several pages of copy book type entries showing heights and distances, some drawings. Finally in the back, 8 pages of diary entries. This journal is the largest in the bunch measuring about 8" x 13" which gives you a lot of information on each page. Total number of handwritten pages is 55. In this journal he also talks about a ship named the "Ocean." 2) 1830 Ledger style journal with 21 handwritten pages. Also in the front are two pages of poetry, one titled "On the Independence of South America; Sung in New York" and the other titled "The Nashville Tragedy." There are a lot of names in this journal. 3) 1863-1867 Receipt type ledger with expenses. This one is in Spanish or Portuguese kept while he was in Brazil. 12 handwritten pages. 4) 1833 Writing work book where he practiced his alphabet letters, etc. There is also a handwritten essay in the back. This journal has 17 handwritten pages. 5) Lastly and 1830 Day Book with 43 handwritten pages; expense type entries also listing many names. Some of the many names mentioned are: James Young, Denton and Smith, James Kane, John Jacob Astor, Thomas Milner, Temple and Camp, Minerva Howland, Nathan Swain, Joseph Hastings, Anthony Billings, Edward Jones, Thomas Grosvenor, Samuel Green, Jonathan Curtis, Theodore Barrell, Charles Long, James Pitney, Thomas Jenkins, Elijah Pollack, Henry Bell, James Vance and so many more. Here are some snippets: "Washington College March 20th, 1830, Half past 11 o'clock, Have for several days been thinking to write a diary, a practice which I have not followed since the first winter of beginning Greek at the goodly town of Cheshire. I wish I had continued it just for the pleasure of accounting to the many, many pleasing and as a matter of course, often unpleasing, incidents of my stay there and to see again my daily progress in Virgil, Cicero, Sallust and the first elements of Greek which I used to set down with minimal regularity. I shall though never forget those scenes. They are engraved firmly on my mind and the place where I first learned to taste the beauties of Virgil and to enjoy the elegant productions of Cicero….But why am I that moralizing upon the classes and so pedant like talking of my own acquisitions in them? I don't know but tis to make a beginning to my journal which would make but poor appearance (over to self for whom alone it shall be written) without and for a want of which it has been so long neglected, I suppose." "March 30th, 1830 Been very insolent all day as respects to study…One week now and we shall be at liberty again. Next Wednesday afternoon will probably terminate my second term of college life. This term has passed rapidly with me and been very busy, yet I find my mind frequently stretching to the end of it and welcoming its approach with an eagerness not a little unlike that of those who are less pleased with college than myself…How swift are the transitions of thought! How constantly on the wing is our universal cheerer and consoler. Hope! Thus I am continually led into a train of moralizing and thus my consoling pen will run on ____ in publishing the wandering incipiencies of my brain…." The smallest journal measures about 6" x 7 ½" and the largest one 8" x 13". All of them have paper covers and most are in good shape with some foxing on many of the pages. The cover on one of them is very torn but all in all the pages and bindings look good. BIO NOTES: to Dr. Nathaniel Oliver Cornwall (1816-1903) was born in 1816. As a child he attended local schools and then at about 14 years of age Nathaniel was sent to the school of Reverend Asa Cornwall in Cheshire and after that he went off to school in Granby. In 1833, he went to Episcopal Academy, in Cheshire. In 1835 began attending Washington College and graduated 1839. After college Nathaniel Cornwall attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York State from which he graduated in 1846. After medical school, he accepted a teaching job in South America and within a year decided to go into the medical field in Brazil. After an accidental meeting with a dentist, (also from Connecticut) he decided to become a dentist instead of having a medical practice and for the rest of his career kept that as his profession while living in South America for the next 20 or so years. In 1860 on a visit home to the States he got married to Mary and the couple then returned to South America where his 3 children were born. He had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy, and a son, Edward who became a NY physician. Dr. Cornwall retired relatively early, in 1869 at age 53, and lived the rest of his life in Gildersleeve, which is now Portland CT, on an estate near the trolley line. The family originally had settled in Middletown and nearby areas in the 1700s. [An online search reveals the "Trinity College Bulletin" wherein there is an article titled "Reminiscences of Nathaniel Oliver Cornwall MD" and one will find an extensive history behind the man who owned these journals.]. Manuscript. Book Condition: Good+

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