Caleb M. Whiting
Revolutionary War Soldier

Highlighting the Whiting family and the allied families of
Atwood, Battles, Fairbanks, Lytle, McVey, Sherwood, Sibley, and Wilmarth
. . . and researching the Ingalls connection!
 

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Recollections of
Susan (Fairbank) Whiting

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Book Abstracts
& Manuscripts

Introduction | The New York Years | The Wisconsin Years | Fairbank-Whiting Genealogy

Recollections of Susan Fairbank Whiting (Mrs. Newell Whiting)
written at the age of 78 for her son DuMonte A. Whiting
at Buffalo, October 8, 1908

Introduction

In July of 2007, I obtained a typewritten transcript of the Recollections of Susan Fairbank Whiting from the University of Wisconsin Libraries, Madison.  I do not know who did the transcription or when, but I assume the original is handwritten.  Having not seen the original, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the transcript.  I did encounter some errors, which may be due to difficulty reading the handwriting.

As an example, the transcript starts with, "Montie, the earliest that Y remember is April 19, 1828?) the day Aunt Rilla was born." 
● Susan was born in 1833 and her sister Aurilla was born in 1838.  Hence, the date should be April 19, 1838.  I'm sure the date was hard to read, which is the reason for the question mark. 
● For some reason the letter Y was used instead of the letter I (the pronoun) when Susan was referring to herself.  This may  be because the letter I looked like the letter Y on the original handwritten copy.   I used "I" to make it more fluent in reading. 
● Sentences ran on with only commas, or sometimes semicolons, breaking what normally would be sentences.  In some cases, I tried to break the text into sentences and still retain the thought that was there, in order to make it more readable. 

Hopefully I have retyped the transcript accurately.  Please contact me if you would like me to check my copy of the transcript or if you would like a copy for yourself.  See the entry toward the bottom of Book Abstracts & Manuscripts for the location of the manuscript.

The manuscript starts by addressing Montie, short for DuMonte, Susan Whiting's only offspring.   I divided the main manuscript into two parts.  The first part seems to be generalities dealing with everyday life and what it was like growing up in New York state in the early 1800s.  The second part deals with the time spent in Wisconsin. It also includes generalities of everyday life, but has more names of relatives, both on the Fairbank side and the Whiting side, along with a few neighbors, etc.

The third part is the Fairbank-Whiting Genealogy organized in a form that can be presented more easily on the Internet.  The genealogy includes a descendant who was born in 1941, and, therefore, obviously not a part of the original manuscript written in 1908.  My thought is that the original was handwritten, and quite possibly transcribed and typed by one of the latter descendants on the genealogy outline. 

The manuscript is a bit rambling, but is, for the most part, interesting reading.  Some of the detail may not be completely accurate, but hopefully, with some diligence, there may be some information that could be useful to someone tracing the Fairbanks or Whiting lines.  After all, it is the recollection of events several years after they occurred. 

So, for what it's worth . . . .

 Introduction | The New York Years | The Wisconsin Years | Fairbank-Whiting Genealogy