Alfie Noyes's Diary, 1862

Alfaretta Lucretia Noyes was born December 5, 1848. She attended the Factory Village School in School District #4 and was thirteen years old when she began this diary in September 1862, concluding it the following February.

Edward Carver Damon taught the Sabbath School classes Alfie refers to in her diary entry for September 15th. Damon taught a class for a large number of young ladies at noon in Concord center, and one for men and boys at Factory Village in the afternoon. At the mill a small hall above the counting room was converted to hold religious services every Sunday, and Concord’s ministers took turns preaching there. Damon, a quietly devout man, was a member of Concord’s Congregational Trinitarian Church for most of his life, but as he grew older he found himself increasingly more comfortable with the philosophy of the Unitarian Church and often attended services there.

Alfie Noyes’s diary was presented to the Concord Free Public Library in 2002 by one of her descendants.