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Creator
Fitch, Asa, 1809-1879
Call number
MssCol NYGB 17996
Physical description
2 v, 34 cm. (2 v. in 1 phasebox); 2 v, 34 cm. (2 v. in 1 phasebox)
Preferred Citation
Asa Fitch transcripts of Jabez Fitch narrative and diaries, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library
Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

Asa Fitch (1809-1879) of Salem, New York was an entomologist and genealogist. He was the grandson of Jabez Fitch (1737-1812) of Norwich, Connecticut and Hyde Park, Vermont, a soldier in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. The collection consists of Asa Fitch's transcripts of Jabez Fitch's narrative account of his treatment as an American prisoner of war after the Battle of Long Island, 1776-1777, his brief digest of diaries for the years 1749-1756, and his diaries continuing from late 1756-1772 May, 1774 Jan.-Oct., and 1777 Dec.-1793 Jan.; as well as Asa Fitch's transcripts of some miscellaneous items relating to the Fitch family; and his index with notes of family members and events mentioned in the Jabez Fitch diaries. Miscellaneous items include transcripts of Capt. Samuel P. Fitch's Voyage to the Pacific, from a New London, Connecticut newspaper, 21 Dec. 1808; the pension warrant of Joanna Walker, widow of Cordilla Fitch; and genealogical notes on the Fitch family from the volume known as the Brewster Book.

Administrative information

Related Material

Related collections include the Jabez Fitch Diary, 1776-1777, and the Fitch Family Manuscripts, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library

Related collections in other repositories include Jabez Fitch's narrative (MS B F553), Vermont Historical Society, Barre, VT; Jabez Fitch Diaries, 1749-1812, and the Jonathan Brewster Manuscript (Brewster Book), Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Braintree, MA; Jabez Fitch diaries in the Fitch Family Papers, Bailey/Howe Library, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT; and Jabez Fitch Journals, 1775, and the Papers of Jabez Fitch, 1776, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Note

Jabez Fitch's narrative is copied in part from its publication in the Vermont Historical Gazetteer (1871), the remainder from the original manuscript (Asa Fitch note, v. 1, p. 57)

;

Transcript diary entries in v. 1 from 1771 Jan. (p. 226) forward, and in v.2 are selected entries edited by Asa Fitch

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See William H.W. Sabine's The New-York Diary of Lieutenant Jabez Fitch (New York, 1954) for a bibliographical essay on the diaries and narrative, and the text of Jabez Fitch's narrative in comparison with the text of his original diary covering the same period, the diary being held in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library

;

See the inventory (2007) of Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Collection of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants for a detailed list of Fitch diaries at the Society with publication notes, available online at http://www.massmayflower.org/research/library/rarebook-mss.pdf

;

The Asa Fitch transcripts contain diary entries for 1771 Jan.-1772 May, and possibly others, partially matching dates for original diaries identified as missing in Sabine and in the inventory of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants

Bibliography

Jabez Fitch's "A nar[r]ative of the treatment with which American prisoners were used who were taken by the British & Hessian troops on Long Island, York Island &c 1776 : with some occasional observations" was published in facsimile as The Diary of Captain Jabez Fitch (New York, 1897), re-issued by William Abbatt (New York, 1903) under a variant title

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328