Monday's Mystery Ledger, part 4

This is a continuation of the ledger entries I started in my Monday Mystery Ledger (first posting January 31, 2011). When I first looked through this ledger, I wasn't sure how useful it was – but eventually I broke a couple of brick walls, finding people mentioned as “son of”, “wife of” etc. So good luck!

To repeat: The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to try to help me figure out where this ledger came from – patterns of names connecting to families might help narrow down the possibilities. Although I don't know for sure, it probably is from somewhere near Albany in upstate New York. The first entry is 1830. My notes and running commentary are in brackets...

Names found in the posts for previous Mondays included:

Becker, Mary Beecker, David Billington, James Billington, John (son of James) Flansburg, Conrad Groat, Simon

Houg, Peter M Merenae, Abram Mereness, John Mereness, John Jr Moak, Phillip Rosenburg, Jacob

Sirby (Dirby?), Nicolas Sommers, Abram Sommers, Harriett Vanderwarker, George (above might be Vandewater?) Vaness, John

Today, the ledger revisits David Beecker, Simon Groat, Abraham Mereness, John Mereness and Jacob Rosenburg, with more entries for each of them. In addition, this week's entries have a number of new names as well.

The math in prior versions wasn't adding up, and occasionally it still may not due to the vagaries of penmanship & my ability to read the old text – but I did look it up and the monetary conversion at the time provided for 20 shillings per pound, and 12 pence in each shilling... that may (or may not) make things balance a bit better!

Grab your detective hats, and on to the ledger entries!

PAGE 8:	₤	s	d
Jacob Rosenburg, 1831, to 1 bushel of apples	0	1	6
to 16 bushels of apples at 1 shilling per bushel	0	16	0
to 1 barrel of cider at 8 s per barrel	0	8	0
October 28 to 20 ½ lbs of sole leather at 2 s per lb	2	1	0
to 1 barrel of cider do		8	0
Simon Groat August 19th 1831, to 5 loads of hay at 8 s per load	2	00	0
Henry Fundy [Fandy? First letter might be a “T”] Nov 28, 1831, to 450 feet of hemlock boards at 50 [illegible] per cwt	2	25
PAGE 9:
David Beeker 1831, to 1 bake stove		17	00
to 24 lbs of pipe at 12 ½ [illegible] per lb	3	0	0
David Becker 1831 [note: because David Beeker & David Becker are adjacent entries but clearly separated, I am assuming it is not a spelling variation, rather two different individuals with similar names]
to weaving 28 ells [about 1 yard] linen at six pence per ell	0	14	0
to eight ells woolen at 6 pence per	0	4	00
to 14 do	0	7	0
to 58 do	1	9	0
to 30 do		15
PAGE 10
Wm Dusendorf , Feb 29, 1832To 496 feet of hemlock boards at 50 cents per cwt	2	4	8
March 9, [illegible] Simonmons [“mon” appears twice]
To 800 feet of hemlock boards at 50 cents per cwt	4	0	0
George Borgt March 31, to sawing 37 logs 5409 feet [no monetary entry]
John Pinder, April 4, o sawing [?]eanlling 1881 feet at 11 shillings 9 pence per cwt	0	12	11
to 586 cwt feet of plank at 4s per cwt	1	3	6
to 724 cwt of boards at 1 s 9 pence per cwt	0	12	8
to sawing 2 logs 1 s per log for Wm Fraats April 4th	0	2	0
Peter Becker April 5th to one log	0	2	1
PAGE 11
Abraham Mereness, April 11th to sawing 3852 feet at 1 s 9 d per cwt	3	4	1
Martin L [?] Mereness, April 17th to 400 ft of hemlock boards at 50 cents/cwt	2	0	[?]
John Pinder, April 20th, to 2372 ft of hemlock boards at 3 s 6 d per cwt	4	3	1
John Mereness, April 23rd to sawing 2110 ft of hemlock boards at 1s 9d per cwt	4	16	0
to 78 feet of plank at 3s 6 d per cwt	0	3	1
Martin L [?] Mereness, April 24th to 228 ft of basswood plank at 6 s per cwt	0	10	9
May 1 to 1 plank do 17 feet do	0	0	10
to 12 [?] feet of hemlock boards at 4 s 50 pence per cwt	0	8	62 [?]

Notes:

       cwt was a standardized cut length/weight for boards

       1 pound equaled 20 shillings and there were 12 pence to a shilling
       abbreviation for pence was “d”

Until next time...