Eunice P. Wyman and Porter Kimball Account Book

1814-1840 (Bulk: 1820-1840)
1 box (0.25 linear ft.)
Call no.: MS 163
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Eunice P. Wyman was a farmer from Concord, Massachusetts, and Porter Kimball was the owner of a dry goods and grocery store from Sterling, Massachusetts. Eunice's accounts include transactions related to her farm and homestead, such as selling products (butter, soap, syrup, pigs), brokering the services of her sons (picking apples, driving cows, butchering, digging wells), and renting half her house to a man who paid in part by performing tasks. The method and form of payment was cash and exchange of goods or services (cider and vinegar, wool, shoemaking, use of wagons and horses). Porter's accounts include lists of customers by surname, and the dry goods and groceries he sold.

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Scope of collection

Eunice P. Wyman of Concord, Massachusetts kept accounts 1820-40 of transactions related to her farm and homestead. She gained income not only from selling products (butter, soap, syrup for a sick man, pigs), but also through selling the services of her sons John and Franklin (picking apples, driving cows, digging potatoes, butchering, digging wells, shoveling gravel) and renting half her house to a man who paid, in part, by performing tasks (putting rockers on an arm chair, white washing two rooms, making a flower box).

Her goods and her sons' services were paid for in cash or by exchange of goods or services (cider and vinegar, wool, driving her cattle home from Stoddard's pasture, shoemaking, plowing the garden, "himself and oxen to go into town to get 23 rails and 11 posts," use of wagons, horses, carts, and oxen). Through use of the index to the Massachusetts Census for 1820, 1830, and 1840, customers were identified as being from Concord, Carlisle, Acton, and Westford.

The back of the volume includes 5 pages of 1814 accounts for dry goods and groceries with Porter Kimball, who appears in the Massachusetts 1820 Census living in Sterling, Worcester County. His customers appear to be from various central and eastern Massachusetts locales, including Charlestown, Roxbury, Fitchburg, and Templeton.

In addition, the final pages carry recipes for Cup Cake, Election Cake, and Sponge Cake.

Administrative information

Access

The collection is open for research.

Provenance

Acquired from: Charles Apfelbaum, 1987.

Processing Information

Processed by Linda Seidman, June 1987.

Language:

English

Acknowledgments

Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Copyright and Use (More information )

Cite as: Eunice P. Wyman and Porter Kimball Account Book (MS 163). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Search terms

Subjects

  • Agricultural laborers--Massachusetts--Concord--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Barter--Massachusetts--Concord--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Concord (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century--Sources.
  • Consumers--Massachusetts--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Dry-goods--Prices--Massachusetts--Sterling--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Farmers--Massachusetts--Concord--Economic conditions--19th century--Sources.
  • General stores--Massachusetts--Sterling--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Groceries--Prices--Massachusetts--Sterling--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Grocers--Massachusetts--Sterling--Economic conditions--19th century--Sources.
  • Kimball, Porter.
  • Sterling (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century--Sources.
  • Sterling (Mass.)--History--19th century--Sources.
  • Wyman, Eunice P.

Contributors

  • Wyman, Eunice P. [main entry]
  • Kimball, Porter.

Genres and formats

  • Account books.

Link to similar SCUA collections