Manuscript Notebook of Sarah Creighton Wilkins

Dated 1779-1833, the Manuscript Notebook of Sarah Creighton Wilkins is located in the MacDonald Family Fonds held at the Nova Scotia Public Archives. The majority of the dated recipes may be from 1810-1820, yet it is clear that much of the collection was at least devised if not compiled before 1800. Of the Notebook's nearly 100 recipes, over two-thirds are medical, while the remainder encompass the categories of "household" and "cosmetic" as well as the expected food and drink. Significant not only in the variety of its offerings, the Notebook comprises the most substantial recipe collection attributed to an early modern Maritime woman and, though many of its entries were passed along by family and friends, it is possible that some were devised by Wilkins herself. Typically for the period, location, and genre, Wilkins' Notebook further attests to the migration of goods and knowledge in referring to London newspapers and locations, to English physicians and surgeons, and to ingredients from Europe, Africa, and Asia as well as the Americas.