Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Cash
On this day, 250 years-ago, Colden made several ledger entries in the Daybook unrelated to the day's sales.
For example, he bought cash from Anthony Stephens - the amount was illegible.
Next, Colden credited Jacob Millspaugh's account for five pounds, seventeen shillings, and two pence. This was to correct an inaccurate entry on January 27th. He settled Jacob's account to May 9th and carried forward a credit of ten shillings and ten pence. Colden debited Millspaugh's account for one pound, twelve shillings and nine pence, then credited an identical sum to Richard George. Essentially Colden had just facilitated a cashless business deal between George and Millspaugh.
Nicholas Millspaugh must have made a similar deal as Colden debited his account and made an identical credit to George.
Colden bought cash from Richard George, in addition to crediting his account with the transfers from Jacob and Nicholas Millspaugh.
Colden also settled the accounts of Johannes Youngblood and Robert DeLap on this day.
 |
| August 4, 1768 New-York Journal Front Page Header. |
==============================
Search the DayBook
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 local store played an important role in the economy of these rural areas. The store was more than a place to buy imported goods. It loaned cash, acted as agent for domestic production, and facilitated transactions between buyers and sellers. Addition examples are in the blogs that describe vendues where Colden facilitated some of the sales. Nathaniel Hill - Blog of April 7, 2018; Horse - Blog of March 21, 2018.
The New-York Journal of this date (see Front Page above) contained an interesting observation on the dearth of cash by the editor. He wrote:
"The great scarcity of small change in this city [New York], occasions much trouble and loss of time, while perhaps a whole neighborhood is troubled to change a bill or a dollar, which sometimes cannot be effected; and thus both buyer and seller are disappointed. To remedy this disadvantage, if a sufficient quantity of small tickets from three pence to nine pence value were issued and signed by a certain number of gentlemen of known estates in this city, I make no doubt of their passing currently, as such do in one or more neighboring governments. This scheme it is thought would be no disadvantage to those gentlemen, and would be of great benefit to the city and country in general."Colden's store was one way in which the Precinct of Wallkill dealt with the scarcity of cash in their area of New York.
[Author's note: The DayBook entries of August 3, 1768 contained nothing extraordinary. There were no entries for Friday, August 5th. No blogs exists for those dates.]
===============================
Search the DayBook
No comments:
Post a Comment