Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Clerks and Cash
The last day of the week at the Colden Store passed without much excitement. Tomorrow, Sunday, the store would be closed. 1768 was a leap year, so Monday, the 29th, would be the last day of the month.
On Saturday, February 27th, 250 years ago, Colden made 21 transactions on nine different accounts. Three of the accounts were only ledger entries - no account owner was actually in the store. Of the remaining six accounts with transactions, three appeared in person, and the others were represented by a neighbor, a son, and a slave.
The transactions for this day are all on one page. It is a good opportunity to analyze the handwriting of the various store clerks.
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This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
This day's transactions are a good example of how the store facilitated the economy with little cash. (see image above) The store bought cash from Neal McClaughlin and credited it to his account. Colden then apparently took that same cash and paid half to William Wilkins and half to Archibald McCurdy, debiting both of their accounts. Were these transactions linked in any other way? I am sure they were...and maybe some historian will shed light on that (leave a comment below.) Wilkins and McCurdy have active accounts in the DayBook and Colden is probably in a good position to monitor their debt to him. On the other hand, Neal McClaughlin is not mentioned anywhere else in the DayBook. That seems strange, but maybe McClaughlin owed Colden for some transaction unrelated to the store? It is also interesting that Colden recorded the locations of the transactions: "at Captain Borlands" and "at Nathaniel Owens." These two names are not mentioned anywhere else in the DayBook.
The cash transactions were recorded by Cadwallader Colden II himself. His handwriting is recognizable from his other known journals and it makes sense that he would record these transactions that did not occur at the store. One way I recognize his writing is by his "M"s which look like three vertical slashes: |||. He also finds it inconvenient to cross his "t"s.
But there are entries by at least two other clerks in the store on this day, on the same page. For example, the first entry of the day is by the clerk I fancy as a well-bred son of a Van Cortlandt or Delancey studying at the Coldengham Academy nearby. His writing has flourishes and his spelling is excellent. Notice the flourishes on the "D"s.
This clerk also spells 'Buttons' correctly (a rarity). But also notice that a different clerk enters the "By" part of the transaction (in blue rectangle....it appears to be Colden), which indicates that maybe this clerk is junior and a more seasoned person is handling the inspection and entry of goods purchased by the store.
The second and third entries are by yet another clerk. He consistently uses the spellings: 'Shuger'[Sugar], 'Shulune'[Shalloon], and 'Butugs' [Buttons]. His handwriting is sloppier than Colden's and Flourish-man's and he seldom crosses his "t"s (an example below is Butugs which looks like Bulugs).
There is yet a fourth clerk who writes in very tall and slender script, but he is not present on this day, 250 years ago.
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