In the early part of the 18^th century, in New London, Joshua Hempstead kept a diary.  For forty-seven years, from 1711 to 1758, he recorded, on a daily basis, the weather, baptisms and publishments, military trainings, court sessions, town meetings, thanksgivings, fasts, deaths, and all the other large and small events that made up life in that busy seaport.  The first printed edition of the diary was published in 1901 by the New London County Historical Society, becoming a gold mine for both historians and genealogists.  A second edition, correcting obvious typographical errors and misspellings and with a new format, was issued in 1999.  The latest third edition, containing many corrections and added material that had been deliberately or accidentally omitted, came out early in 2024.  The NLCHS had acquired a missing section of the diary, allowing the printed diary to be completely proofread against the manuscript.  Seventeen pages of extra material were added, and the name index expanded and redone.  The presentation covers the changes made to the body of the diary after proofreading and the changes to the name index.

Bio:

Patricia M. Schaefer has been researching and writing about eighteenth-century Connecticut for about thirty years.  She worked on, and wrote the introduction to, the New London County Historical Society’s 692-page 1999 edition of The Diary of Joshua Hempstead 1711-1758. Her book, A Useful Friend: A Companion to the Joshua Hempstead Diary 1711-1758, published by the NLCHS, won the Homer Babbidge Award in 2009 for the best work on Connecticut history.  Pat did the proofreading and the name index to the 2024 third edition of the diary.  She is the Director of Research Services for the NLCHS, and also answers email research queries one morning a week at Mystic Seaport Museum. She and her husband, Tod, live in Mystic.