1871-1927 George Gault Notebook (Corrected from 1886)

Archive

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Town of Sand Lake, New York

Photograph of George Gault: Taken sometime between 1903 and 1907. Per his great, great-granddaughter Sharron, "Chick," Shepard, George Gault was born in 1823 and died in 1907. Sharron suspects that much of the notebook may record his efforts to renovate his family's residence, which was located near the intersection of Routes 43 and 66 in Sand Lake. George and his wife, Margaret Cain, bought the property for $120 from William and Sarah Scram in 1866.
Photograph of George Gault

Taken sometime between 1903 and 1907. Per his great, great-granddaughter Sharron, "Chick," Shepard, George Gault was born in 1823 and died in 1907. Sharron suspects that much of the notebook may record his efforts to renovate his family's residence, which was located near the intersection of Routes 43 and 66 in Sand Lake. George and his wife, Margaret Cain, bought the property for $120 from William and Sarah Scram in 1866.

Name/Title

1871-1927 George Gault Notebook (Corrected from 1886)

Entry/Object ID

2021.2.63

Scope and Content

Sixteen-page PDF of a notebook of material and labor expenses for construction and/or renovation work initially kept by George Gault (1823 - 1907) of Sand Lake, NY, beginning in 1871 and subsequently passed through the generations and further updated by a later relative and fellow carpenter, Frank Hack, from approximately 1921 until 1927. George Gault received the notebook as a gift from his son, George Clinton Gault, on June 17, 1871, but only completed the first four pages. Subsequent entries were made by Hack per Gault's great-great-granddaughter and former Town of Sand Lake resident, Sharron A. Shepard. Per the example pages, the initial four pages of entries appear to relate to carpentry and/or renovation expenses perhaps on Gault's home and the later entries appear to relate to hours worked and wages paid during a series of construction contracts that Hack completed for various Sand Lake residents from roughly 1920 to 1927, with the exception of a single unattributed 1886 entry that appears toward the end of the notebook. Specifically, Hack apparently paid himself $.90 an hour and local employees named Dibbler, Middleton, Deyss, Schreiner, and Lester $.70 an hour for work completed for the Shortsleeve, Bauer, Karl, Burrough, Kane, Kehn, Larkin, Reichard, and Gregory families, among others, as well as the Methodist Episcopal (ME) Church. George Gault also reportedly worked for some of the mills that were located throughout Sand Lake and as an Assistant Sand Lake Postmaster around 1900. The PDF available here only includes about a 20% sampling of the pages in the notebook since they tend to be quite repetitive. The calfskin notebook cover remains amazingly soft and supple in spite of being over 151 years old and helps explain why the notebook was saved and reused for so many years. The PDF is downloadable while fully logged into the system. Refer to the example pages for a preview of its content. Agnes Hack, the wife of Gault descendant and Frank Hack's son, Charles "Chuck" Hack, donated the notebook to the Town in 1978. Per the "St Pierre and Shepard Faith Mills Documents Collection" entry of this site, the notebook eventually inspired the donation of a huge collection of extremely rare Faith Mills documents to the Town of Sand Lake by his great-great-granddaughter, Sharron A. Shepard, in exchange for the Town of Sand Lake sending her the original notebook. However, a much higher resolution PDF of the entire notebook is stored off-line and available upon request under the following file name with "1886," rather than 1927, reflecting the mistaken assumption that the notebook was only maintained until 1886 due to Frank Hack seldom dating his later entries: 1871-1886_George_Gault_Notebook_Hi_Res.pdf

Cataloged By

Michael Frederick Perry

Acquisition

Accession

2021.2

Acquisition Method

Found

Dimensions

Height

6 in

Width

3-1/2 in

Depth

1/2 in

Created By

curator@slhstrustees.org

Create Date

March 29, 2022

Updated By

curator@slhstrustees.org

Update Date

November 21, 2022