BUTTER! April 26, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Tuesday April 26, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Butter

Hans Yurry Smith brought three and one-half pounds of butter to the Colden Store on this day, 250 years-ago. He sold it to the store at the normal rate of ten pence per pound. His account was credited with £0:2:11.

Churning Butter.  Image courtesy of history.org

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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.

The community was a net exporter of butter. Of the sixty transactions for butter in the prior eight months, 80% were sales to the store.

It appears the salted butter kept well enough to not only send to New York City, but also to ship to the West Indies. Peter Kalm wrote in 1749 that New York vessels carried "flour, corn, biscuit, timber, tuns, boards, flesh, fish, butter, and other provisions ..." to the West Indies and returned with rum.

Sample of butter transactions at the Colden Sstore.

The price of the butter purchased the prior October from Robert Carskadan (see 057-06 above) was to be based on the price Carskadan would fetch in New York City later that fall. It appears Colden was not the only person in the area trading directly with New York City. The transaction contains a notation that seems to indicate this butter was intended for Colden's sister, "Mrs. DeLancey."

Butter was sold by the pound in firkins and cags (kegs). A firkin was about eight gallons and appeared to contain 65 to 75 pounds of butter. [8 gallons of water is 67 pounds. Butter is less dense than water, so a firkin of butter would be less than that.] Webster's 1828 dictionary stated that the term firkin was rarely used in America "... except for butter or lard, and signifies a small vessel or cask of indeterminate size, or of different sizes, regulated by the statutes of the different states."

Webster had this to say about 'keg' in his 1828 dictionary: "A small cask or barrel; written more correctly cag." It appears the clerks in Colden's store were using the 'correct' Websterian spelling! A 'cag' must have been synonymous with the firkin cask as the weights per cag were were about the same as the weights per firkin.

In the prior eight months over 2000 pounds of butter were purchased by Colden.  He only sold about 100 pounds.  More than half of the sales were to Captain Farrington, who perhaps was making a government purchase and not a personal one.

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