Description
These two notebooks were titled "Recipes," Volumes I and II, by their author, John D. Shane (ca. 1811-1864). The first half of Volume I and all of Volume II contain recipes for cooking and preserving foods, medical and veterinary recipes, and household and gardening advice. The second half of Volume I is devoted to the principles, techniques, and formulas for making daguerreotypes.
John Shane's notebooks are part of a vast collection of historical manuscripts collected by Lyman Copeland Draper (1815-1891), a lifelong student of history who served as the first corresponding secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Society has organized these manuscripts in fifty , of which the "Kentucky Papers" is one. They are identified in this series as Volumes 36-37.
Draper purchased Shane's notebooks at an 1864 auction of Shane's papers. in Cincinnati. Shane was a Presbyterian minister in Ohio and Kentucky, but, like Draper, was also a passionate historian. Draper jotted down the
following notes about Shane at the time of acquiring his papers:
John D. Shane-- born in Cinc.-Klied in March, 1864, aged abt. 53. Quiet--secretive. Poor--Spent all his earnings in his collections, book sales &c. Lived among his books & papers. Designed a Hist. of the Rise & Progress of the Religious Denominations in the West: Stinted himself --lived & clad poorly--in garrets in winter without a fire.
Draper went on to use material from Shane's two recipe notebooks in a one-volume home-and-farm encyclopedia that he and a coauthor published in 1869,
A Helping Hand for Town and Country.