Deeds, Receipts, Estate Inventories and Other Legal Documents, 1780.

Documents from the Settlement of a New Hampshire Estate [Manuscript Archive]. [New Hampshire]. [Wallace Family]. [Deeds, Receipts, Estate Inventories and Other Legal Documents]. Londonderry, NH, 1766, 1782-1801. 17 documents, 7 are 12" x 7-1/2" (30.5 x 19 cm) bifolia and single sheets, 1 is a 15" x 12" (38 x 30.5 cm) sheet, others range in size from 7" x 7-1/2" to 2" x 7-1/2" (17.8 x 19; 5.1 x 19 cm). Moderate browning, somewhat lighter in places, foxing, some leaves have dampstaining, creases, tears along fold lines, a few small chips (with no loss to legibility), 2 items mended with cellotape on versos. $500. * A cohesive manuscript archive documenting the administration and protracted settlement of the estate of Thomas Wallace, a prosperous agrarian landowner of Londonderry, New Hampshire. The core of the collection centers on the immediate aftermath of Wallace's death in May 1790, comprising detailed estate inventories and contemporary sales receipts that minutely record the domestic economy and property values of a wealthy late-18th-century New England farmer. The remainder of the archive consists of financial claims and receipts for payments levied against the estate, tracing its administration through its final dissolution in 1801. The earliest document-a 1766 lease-survives here as an essential piece of evidentiary title or a persistent liability presented during the probate process. Collectively, these documents offer rich primary source material for the study of post-Revolutionary economic life, material culture, and early American probate law in northern New England.…