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Collection

Dennis Skehan tavern account book, 1765-1772

1 volume

This account book contains financial records for customers' purchases from Dennis Skehan's tavern from 1767 to 1772, principally of alcoholic beverages though he also sold other items. Entries that note fees for boarding and food indicate that the tavern may also have functioned as an inn. A number of entries reflect the making or repair of clothing and shoes, suggesting some tailoring work may have also been happening in the family. In addition to cash, patrons also payed via goods and labor, indicating a barter system was operating. The exchange documented throughout for grains may relate to ingredients used for the production of alcohol.

This account book contains financial records for customers' purchases from Dennis Skehan's tavern from 1767 to 1772, principally of alcoholic beverages like flip or philip, toddy, beer, milk punch, various types of rum, as well as spirits or liquor. Entries also include the amount of alcohol purchased, providing insight into how the beverages were served and consumed, using measurements such as bowls, mugs, glasses, gills, drams, nips, and others. Accounts specifying fees for boarding and food suggest that the tavern may also have been functioning as an inn. Beyond alcohol, purchases for tobacco, paper, tea, and other items are also recorded, indicating other forms of goods were on offer. A number of entries pertain to the making or repair of clothing and shoes, suggesting some tailoring work may have been happening in the family.

In addition to cash, patrons also payed via goods like fabric, corn, wheat, eggs, butter, and deerskins, or exchanged labor like a day's work, plowing, or spinning flax, indicating a barter system was operating. An account on the first page includes payments on a barrel of Rum as well as schipples (a measurement used for dry goods) of Rye "Male" and Indian "Male," likely phonetic spellings for "meal." The exchange documented throughout for grains may relate to ingredients used for the production of alcohol.

At least two entries were made out to Mary Skehan, dating after Dennis Skehan's death, suggesting she may have continued the business following his passing.

The account book includes an inscription, "Dennis Skehan's Book," dated 1765, as well as a note recording Dennis Skehan's death on October 14, 1771. Later entries dated August 1772 include copies of receipts for payments John Flynn made in New York currency to two men, suggesting he may have come into possession of the volume following Skehan's death.

Collection

Josiah Morse account book, 1846-1856, 1876

152 pages (1 volume)

Reverend and physician Josiah Morse of Stewartstown, New Hampshire, kept this account ledger between 1846 and 1854. The entries are largely for medical services, treatments, and medicines for clientele in Stewartstown and other nearby locations. In addition, Morse occasionally took in boarders, rented out his cutter and gig, and received subscription payments for his services as a Congregational minister. Clients paid with cash, skilled services, labor, foodstuffs, and other goods. Laid into the volume are two pages of accounts for travel, room, board, medicine, washing, postage, life insurance, and sundries for the period of June 1, 1850, to June 5, 1851, paid by the Marquette Iron Company for Dr. Morse's year of service as physician and minister at Marquette, Michigan.

Reverend and physician Josiah Morse of Stewartstown, New Hampshire, kept this account ledger between April 22, 1846, and 1854. The entries are largely for medical services, treatments, and medicines for clientele in Stewartstown and other nearby locations. In addition, Morse occasionally took in boarders, rented out his cutter and gig, and received subscription payments for his services as a Congregational minister. Clients paid with cash, skilled services, labor, foodstuffs, and other goods.

Josiah Morse's accounts include a wide range of medicinal treatments, such as valerian, opium, morphine, paregoric, "powders", various compounds and liniments, pills, pulmonary elixirs, emetics, salts, bitters, "Indian Hemp", potash, squills, iodide, fetid gum, soda, tart acid, gum arabic, cough drops, "Scotch Emp", calomel, pink root and senna, seneka, quinine digitalis, cream tartar, rosemary, asafoetida, anodyne elixir, Irish moss, licorice, cathartic, cough syrup, and camphor.

Among the procedures utilized by Dr. Morse were cupping, dressing, vaccinating, setting limbs, lancing, extracting teeth, bleeding, applying liniments, and addressing a leg bitten by a dog (page 70).

Josiah Morse's customers were largely Stewartstown area residents, but he also treated people from nearby Canaan (Vt.), Clarksville (N.H.), Pittsburg (N.H.), Columbia (N.H.), Concord (Vt.), and Lemington (Vt.). Dr. Morse received payment in cash, foodstuffs, manufactured goods, and skilled labor. Patients supplied him with carpentry and wheelwright labor (page 14), the use of an oxen wagon and team (page 35), wood chopping, cutter repair, mason work (page 46), cheese, strawberries, oats, hay, attendance on his pig (page 36), pumpkins (page 38), house cleaning, maple sugar, blankets, baskets, quicksilver, milk, cloth, ginger, ribbon, lamp oil, tea, thread, nails, alcohol, "goods at Cooley's Store", and sundry articles.

Dr. Morse paid weekly board for his daughter Fanny between July 1847 and October 1849 (see pages 54, 63, 85, 93, for example). One lengthy account is with the "Meeting House Company," for planning, framing, squaring timber, shingling, labor, laying chimney, lime mortar, and boarding (page 77).

Laid into the volume are two pages of accounts for travel, room, board, medicine, washing, postage, life insurance, and sundries for the period of June 1, 1850, to June 5, 1851, paid by Amos Harlow of the Marquette Iron Company for Dr. Morse's services as physician and minister at Marquette, Michigan. Other laid-in items include a partially printed summons for an unpaid debtor, a signed subscribers' petition to hire Josiah Morse as preacher in Stewartstown, May 13, 1846; and a letter from A. Smalley of the State Medical Society, March 27, 1854, requesting information on any form of medical schools in Morse's town/county.

Collection

Lemuel Cotton daybooks, 1889-1894

2 volumes

Lemuel Cotton of Hiram, Maine, kept these daybooks to record the financial transactions associated with what appears to be a general goods store. Entries are made by individual days and list out customer names, purchases, and amounts owed and paid. Types of goods sold include food stuffs and spices, coffee and tea, candy, tobacco, medicine, household goods, tools, shoes, seeds, fertilizers, among other items. Some entries reveal additional elements of life in Hiram, such as charges for the use of a team at a funeral, sale of a suit of clothes and a casket, or sales of firecrackers near the Fourth of July. In addition to cash payments, some bartering appears to have been occurring, as lines of credit are noted for goods like butter, fruits and vegetables, meat, or for services like painting jobs, "picking chickens," butchering, and other day work.

Lemuel Cotton of Hiram, Maine, kept these daybooks to record the financial transactions associated with what appears to be a general goods store. The first volume spans from 1889 to 1890 and the second from 1892 to 1894. Entries are made by individual days and list out customer names, purchases, and amounts owed and paid. Types of goods sold include food stuffs and spices, coffee and tea, candy, tobacco, medicine, household goods, tools, shoes, seeds, fertilizers, among other items. Some entries reveal additional elements of life in Hiram, such as charges for the use of a team at a funeral (vol. 1, p. 39), sale of a suit of clothes and a casket (vol. 1, p. 54), or sales of firecrackers near the Fourth of July (vol. 1, p. 147). In addition to cash payments, some bartering appears to have been occurring, as lines of credit are noted for goods like butter, fruits and vegetables, meat, or for services like painting jobs, "picking chickens," butchering, and other day work.