Mrs. H. M. Raynor lived in Brookhaven Hamlet for much of her later adult life.  She was the second wife of Edward Raynor, a merchant.  They were married between 1860 and 1870.  She had children by her first husband and possibly one child by her marriage to Edward.  Their home was on on the northeast corner of South Country and Beaverdam Roads.  It is no longer extant.

She faithfully maintained a simple diary from 1883 to 1906.  While at first it appears to be just a daily weather report, as one reads on a sense of her daily life and the routine of the community develops.  She referred most of the time to people by their first names, and I have not yet identified exactly whom many of them were.  She appeared to be related to some of the people mentioned, but the relationship is not always clear.    She was apparently a faithful Methodist, and sometimes refers to fellow parishioners as Brother or Sister.  Brewster and Parnal Rose (at the east end of Beaverdam Road) are frequent guests or were visited.  They appeared to be related ("Aunt Parnal"), but I have not yet determined the relationship.  In a simple straightforward way she recorded the life events of the community.

The scanning of this document was done by Marty Van Lith, from the original.  There are 116 pages in the diary.

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