Oct 02, 2012 - Sale 2287

Sale 2287 - Lot 364

Price Realized: $ 1,920
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(NEW YORK.) [Smith, William.] Ledger of an early Rockland County general store. 102 manuscript leaves, plus [59] pages of later accounts. Folio, 19 x 7 inches, original calf, worn; minor wear to contents, with a few later pages torn; extensive notes on endpapers by later owner James M. Ransom, who describes this as "The first store in Rockland County?" (JMR) [Kakiat, NY], 1774-93
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Additional Details

William Smith (1745-1794) was an Irish-born merchant in Kakiat (now Ramapo), NY. He later went into business with his brother Walter Smith; Walter appears with an account in this ledger, and several entries are carried forward to the new partnership.
These general store accounts are mostly for rum, tea, fabric, and other trade goods. One of the more interesting entries was in 1774, when Walter Smith's father-in-law John Coe Esq. was charged 2 shillings for "the Proceeding of the Congress" (page 15). Coe was a patriot who would be elected to the New York Provincial Congress the following year, so he would naturally be interested in the first published proceedings of the Continental Congress.
A long account with Sterling Forge appears on page 66, from the period when Sterling was a major supplier to the Continental Army; the Smiths supplied them with wheat, corn, and sundries, and were paid in part with iron. On page 89 is a long account for settling the estate of Lieutenant John Burnside, who had died in 1781. Smith made two trips to West Point to secure Burnside's back pay. The entries come almost completely to a halt from June 1775 to 1784, with just a handful of entries from 1776 and 1777. This may be due to the war, or perhaps a separate ledger was being kept for the partnership. The volume resumes with numerous entries from 1784 to 1786, and a few more through 1793.
The volume was later used as an account book by Frederick Van Orden (1798-1888) of Ramapo, 1847-71. It was sold by his grandson Silas Van Orden to James M. Ransom in 1951.