This volume is a 14-page diary of Zachary Taylor Cooper of East Montville, Maine, which he kept between May 1 and June 26 of 1875, documenting his work as a beekeeper. He bought and sold bees, built and painted beehives, discussed bees working and swarming, drove sheep, and engaged in other farm work. On June 3, he mentioned that a freeze killed most of the bees in the area. The remainder of the volume contains around 65 pages of farm accounts by an earlier owner in or around Bridgewater and Canton, Massachusetts, 1836-1874. Accounts include entries for shoes, oxen, hay, cattle, potatoes, wheat/grain, apples, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, and labor.
Zachariah Taylor Cooper was born in July 1847 to parents Benjamin Cooper and Hannah Pillsbury of Waldo County, Maine. Zachariah married Ora O. Turner and they had at least two children, including Caroline "Carrie" Emma Cooper Oxton (January 7, 1873-May 23, 1904) and Clarence A. Cooper (b. ca. 1875). The family settled in Montville, Waldo County, Maine, where Zachariah Cooper worked as a farmer and beekeeper. Cooper died of tuberculosis on November 13, 1875, in Montville, Maine.
