The Townsend Young daybook contains 800 pages of financial accounts for Young's business as a clothier in Sing Sing, New York, between 1876 and 1877. His clients were predominantly individuals who paid cash for many types of clothing, tailor work, cloth, and sewing tools. He also rented Singer sewing machines. Each entry includes the customer name, goods purchased or rented, costs, and reference numbers. While Townsend Young held a work contract with Sing Sing's female prison during at least part of this time period, no products in this daybook are specifically identified as the result of contract system labor.
Townsend Young's store also provided tailor services such as sewing, cleaning, pressing, repairing, making buttonholes, and other work. The list of products sold by Young is lengthy. A selection of the goods referenced in the daybook include vests, suspenders, buttons, suits, hats, caps, silk hats, pants, drawers, cravats, studs, spools, silk, socks, needles, linen, "brick", collars, coats, handkerchiefs, shirts, scarves, coachman gloves, kid gloves, castor gloves, bows, umbrellas, elastics, overcoats, canes, muslin, satin, "livingston collars", "geyser water", night shirts, cashmere, cotton coats, bending (cloth), foweling (cloth), balls of cord, wiggan, cotton goods, "grey Cadet cloth" (September 12, 1876, p. 265), velvet, ties, "Campaign Uniforms"/"Campaign Suits" (A. L. Young, October 12, 1876, p. 315; B. C. Insler, Abraham Hyatt, and Dr. Woodcock, November 4, 1876, p. 360), "Suits of Clothing" (George R. Young, Agent and Warden of Sing Sing Prison, October 19 and 26, 1876, pp. 327 and 338), epaulettes (Sharp Terrell's coat, October 21, 1876, p. 331). sheet wadding, canvas, pocketing, twist, thread, slaven jackets, fanning, "Wolf Robes" (Mrs. Dr. Mead, January 10, 1877, p. 487), buffalo robes, and more.
Townsend Young was born on May 8, 1831, in New York to parents John and Phebe Young. In his teenage years, Young became a butcher, starting his own dry goods business in 1852, and he eventually settled in as a merchant tailor. Before 1860, Townsend Young and Maria Lawrence married; they had at least two children, Cyrus and Annie Young. His business as a clothier grew and he became a fixture in Sing Sing. According to his printed stationery, he specialized in "Cloths, Cassimeres, Hats, Caps, Furs, Buffalo Robes, &c. &c. Gents Furnishing Goods and Ready-Made Clothing. Clothing Made to Order." Young's store also rented Singer Sewing Machines.
By the early 1870s, Young utilized convict labor by contracting with the female prison at Sing Sing Prison for clothing manufacture. Townsend Young took his son Cyrus T. Young into the business and became Townsend Young & Son. The firm continued with its success and expanded into branches in Peekskill, Tarrytown, and Middletown.
Townsend Young died on February 9, 1891. Maria Young, his spouse, paid Tiffany and Company for a large Christ Enthroned stained glass memorial window at the Highland Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Ossining, New York.
