Sub-subseries

This sub-subseries, composed of two leather-bound hand-written notebooks, chronicles the leisure activities of the married couple of George Ross Cuthbert and Anne Emily Rush.

The inside cover of the first notebook bears its owner's name: "Mr. Ross Cuthbert's book." It is dated December 21, 1787, probably by Mr. Cuthbert, but a later note also reads "London, August 15th 1788." This notebook covers various methods of navigation, including plane sailing, traverse sailing and parallel sailing. It is composed of explanatory texts and mathematical formulae used to determine a ship's position and course, illustrated with examples and specific cases accompanied by charts and drawings. There are also notes about the influence of sea currents and measurements of amplitude and azimuth. Although it is difficult to affirm with certainty that George Ross Cuthbert did indeed write this book (the young man would have only been 11 years old), the notebook is nonetheless a testament to his early interest in the science of navigation. As an adult, he published a book entitled New Theory of the Tides (1810).

The second notebook is a collection of recipes written down by Anne Emily Rush in 1801. It contains several ways of preparing meat, fish and seafood (for example, how to make bacon, boil ham, salt beef and pork, roast pheasants, stew or fry oysters, and make hogs head cheese and calves feet jelly). Some examples are how "to alamode beef," "make chicken water for the sick" and "dress cod fish after the New England way." A recipe for "potatoe yeast" is included, along with those for many desserts and sweets: blancmange, cheesecake, honey cake, waffles, lemon cream, macaroons, Naples biscuits, and plum, rice, apple and lemon pudding, among others. It is also important to know how to preserve food, so there are recipes for marinades and how to preserve lime or lemon juice, cherries, strawberries and greengage plums, along with instructions for making quince liqueur and brandy cherries. Anne Emily Rush's notebook also contains some household recipes, like one for "destroying bugs," "blacking for shoes" and a beeswax concoction for cleaning mahogany furniture. As a whole, the book casts a light on the eating habits of an aristocratic family at the turn of the 19^th century and chronicles the use of several exotic ingredients like ginger, rose water and orange-blossom water.