‘Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York’, Internet Archive Posts 1849 Diary of a New York City Girl

Diary Of A Little Girl In Old New York Diary of a Little Girl In Old New York p10

Internet Archive, a “non-profit library offering access to 13,038,606 free books, movies, software, music and more,” posted the wonderful Diary of a Little Girl in Old New York. The book, published in 1919, is the 1849 diary of Catherine Elizabeth Havens and like most little girls who keep a diary, Catherine was very detailed about her surroundings and the people who inhabited the world around her.

I AM ten years old to-day, and I am going to begin to keep a diary. My sister says it is a good plan, and when I am old, and in a remembering mood, I can take out my diary and read about what I did when I was a little girl….I remember going with my nurse to the Vauxhall Gardens, and riding in a merry-go-round. These Gardens were in Lafayette Place, near our house, and there was a gate on the Lafayette Place side, and another on the Bowery side….We moved from Lafayette Place to Brooklyn when I was four years old, but only lived there one year. My brother liked Brooklyn because he could go crabbing on the river, but I was afraid of the goats, which chased one of my friends one day. So we came back to New York, and my father bought a house in Ninth Street. He bought it off of a gentleman who lived next door to us, and who had but one lung, and he lived on raw turnips and sugar. Perhaps that is why he had only one lung. I don’t know.

The Library of Congress donated this book and many others for public access. The book is available for reading and for download via Internet Archive. The book can also be sent to a Kindle reading device via Open Library.

Diary of a Little Girl In Old New York p11 The Brick Church

images via Internet Archive

via Internet Archive

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.