Twenty small memorandum books, one kept in 1859, nine kept in the 60's, and ten kept in the 70's, contain the shrewd observations of a Yankee peddler on events which seemed important to him or merely interested him during his lifetime. On the flyleaf of the 1859 book appears the name of Morillo Noyes of Burlington, Vermont, and the notation “No. 9” on the book suggests that it was one of a series begun earlier. The books kept in the 60's are numbered, but he later abandoned the practice of numbering them, so that it only remains clear that the collection is fragmentary.