37 miscellaneous surveys of unidentified land

The Pulsifer Family Papers contain documents concerning the Bickford and Sarah (Stanwood) Pulsifer family of Ipswich, Massachusetts, including Bickford Jr., Ebenezer, David Pulsifer (1802-1894), and John Stanwood Pulsifer.

The documents concerning Bickford Pulsifer Sr. include two letters, five deeds, bill of sale from John Caldwell for the sloop Eunice (1810), a certificate from Thomas Manning to Capt Moses Witcher that Bickford Pulsifer is unfit for military duty (1812), and a bill of sale from John Hathorne Jr., Deputy Marshal for District of Massachusetts, for the schooner Bothnia to Bickford Pulsifer and Roger Treadwell (1814). Bickford Pulsifer Jr. is represented in this collection with only four letters and three documents, 1832-1837. There are four letters exchanged between Ebenezer Pulsifer and his parents, two deeds, and three records concerning the Singing Society of the First Parish in Ipswich, 1818-1853.

David Pulsifer (1802-1894) was the primary copyist for Shurtleff's Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England and Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England. David finished volumes seven through twelve of the Plymouth Colony Records series as editor and he also edited the Hutchinson Papers. David Pulsifer was elected a resident member of NEHGS in 1847. He served as NEHGS librarian (1849-1851) and recording secretary (1857). David Pulsifer is represented in the collection with some correspondence, receipts, and an autobiography that covers from his birth in 1802 to 1847.

The collection contains several kinds of records that document John Stanwood Pulsifer’s varied careers. Nine volumes of his journals survive, 1816-1845, along with an abstract of his journals produced by John in 1845 with a hand drawn map of his travels. The journals provide a detailed account of his education, employment, travel, writings, addresses and sermons, meetings, local events, weather, and inventions. The entries for his writings include when he wrote letters, sermons, and reports. His inventions include a cheese press and a double cylinder washing machine. Along with the journal, there are forty-one letters that he received from his mother, Ira D. Smith, Rev William Chester, and Samuel E. Gibbs from 1817 to 1859; two small ledgers concerning the Missionary Society for the County of Rensselaer (1824) and for the Columbia County Bible Society (1825); thirty-nine sermons written by John S. Pulsifer including four in German (1822-1845); twenty receipts for children’s tuition in Friedensburg, Pennsylvania (1843), sixty-eight school admission certificates from McKeansburg, Pennsylvania (1844); and the land surveys made by John S. Pulsifer in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania (1846-1860). The surveys include thirty-three with the location identified as North Manheim, Schuylkill, South Manheim, West Brunswick, or Windsor, Pennsylvania, along with thirty-seven surveys of unidentified land and seven miscellaneous tracings. In 1848, John S. Pulsifer received a copyright for his book The Writing Aubaot. Aubaot was a new alphabet that Mr. Pulsifer invented consisting of forty-four characters representing sounds of the English language. He published a newspaper called The Phonal Depot using type that he created for his new alphabet. The collection contains a partial copy of The Phonal Depot.