Ebenezer Fernald

LHS purchased this journal in 2012 at a Bruce Gamage auction. It hasn't been transcribed at this point, as the writer's beautiful handwriting is legible and easy to read.

Nowhere does the writer’s name appear, though it is most likely Ebenezer Hall Fernald, son of William and Hannah Hall Fernald. There are clues to his identity which can be found in his daily entries. We assume that the quarry where he works every day is the granite quarry on Fernalds Neck. He mentions Uncle William Hall, and also Thomas, possibly a reference to his brother, names which can be confirmed in the census.

He refers to the deaths of “grandmother” and “grandfather” two months apart in 1857. Patience and Nathaniel Fernald, Sr. are buried in Youngtown Cemetery, with the same dates of death as in the diary.

Ebenezer Hall Fernald was born in 1829 making him 27 years old when the diary began. He died in 1908 at age 79.

He had two wives: Abigail E. Lamb Fernald, b. 1828, d. 1874 and Julia A. Young Fernald, b. 1851, d. 1926

Family members, including children of Ebenezer and his two wives, are buried in lot 50 of Youngtown Cemetery.