Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Doctor John Hill
On this day, 250 years ago, Doctor John Hill replenished his inventory of alcoholic beverages with a purchase of two gallons of the best West Indian Rum.
This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for more of an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
Dr. Hill was a frequent shopper at the store with about 78 visits over the 15 months covered by the DayBook. Rum in quantities greater than a gallon was a favorite purchase. Perhaps rum was large component of his medicinal potions?
From the DayBook we know he had a black slave who picked up many of Hill's purchases at the store. We also know that he had a brother, William Hill, who also picked items for him.
Colden lent Hill money and entered the transactions in the DayBook. But it went further than that. Dr. Hill was building a new home on which Colden held a 200 pound mortgage [Fingerhut, Survivor, p. 52].
The home "adjoined the Wallkill Meeting-house" (Goodwill Church) and was probably very close to the home identified as "W Hill" on the 1798 map of Montgomery.
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| 1798 map of Montgomery, New York showing W Hill home in green circle near Goodwill Church and probable site of Colden Store on the right. |
Hill outfitted his home to operate as a quarantine facility for patients inoculated for small pox. He advertised his practice in New York City papers in 1771.
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| Advertisement in the New-York Gazette of November 11, 1768 for Dr. Hill's "Wallkill" medical practice. |
Hill may have had health or financial problems as he put his home on the market in 1773.
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| Advertisement in the New-York Gazette of August 30, 1773 for Dr. Hill's home. |
The home was sold in 1775. The buyer paid with revolutionary currency. When Hill proceeded to repay the 200 pound mortgage, Colden refused to accept anything but British currency. The revolutionary frictions among neighbors that had been building for years was about to explode.
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Only one other doctor is mentioned in the DayBook: Dr. Jame Lowden [or Louden]. However, a third doctor was known to be practicing in this locale in 1768: Dr. Charles Clinton. His DayBook of medical activities is preserved in Washington's Headquarters Museum in Newburgh. It begins in the year 1764. Some of the entries in Dr. Clinton's DayBook are described in past articles on this site:
Dr. Charles Clinton of Hanover, NY
Dr. Charles Clinton and his Patient, Joseph Campbell
Dr. Charles Clinton and his Patient, Mrs. Nathaniel Campbell
Dr. Charles Clinton and his Patient, James Campbell's wife
The Posthumous Adventures of Dr. Charles Clinton of Montgomery, New York
By 1772 Dr. Clinton was located in a home just south of Dr. Hill's and is visible on the map above.
I am still puzzled that no Clintons ever shopped at the store in Coldengham. They had plenty of money and were geographically close to the store. Was there some animosity between the Clintons and Coldens that existed even seven years before the outbreak of war?
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