GLASS! July 30, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Saturday, July 30, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Glass

Hons Yurry Haas paid one-and-one-half shillings for a Looking Glass at the Colden Store, on this day, 250 years-ago.

Looking Glass c. 1760-1770. Although marked by a Philadelphian cabinet maker, John Eliott, the glass was likely imported. Image Courtesy of the emuseum at Colonial Williamsburg.  

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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.

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Only two Looking Glasses were sold at the Colden Store. James Dailey purchased one in the prior November for fifteen shillings. The one purchased by Haas must have been very small for one-and-one-half shillings.

The glass industry in the colonies was in its infancy in the mid-18th century. One of the first successful glass companies was founded by Caspar Wistar in 1739 in New Jersey. It appears these companies focused on bottles and stemware and did not make mirrors or window-panes. Therefore it is likely that the Looking Glasses and window panes sold at the Colden Store were imported.

Colden sold panes of glass on fourteen occasions. Panes were priced at six pence or four for two shillings.

The bigger purchases indicate who may have been building a new home:

Andrew Graham - 112 panes
James Crawford - 24 panes
Johannes Felter - 16 panes
Samuel Smith - 16 panes

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DAILEY! July 29, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Friday, July 29, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Margret Dailey

Margret Daley [Dailey?] picked up one-half pound of snuff for her father, James, at the Colden Store, on this day, 250 years-ago.

Colden Daybook entries of July 29, 1768 for Margret Daily and William Brennen. New-York Historical Society.

She also purchased one-half yard of Linen, one-quarter yard of Cambric, and a skein of thread on her own account.

William Brennan also bought the same amount of Cambric and thread as Margret. His entry follows that of Margret and is written by the same clerk. The three entries shown above were the last entries of the day. It appears that William and Margret were in the store at the same time, perhaps had even traveled together to the store, and appeared to have the same sewing project in mind.

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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.

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The Dailey surname (Daily, Daley, Dalley, Dayly, Dayley) appeared 33 times in the Colden DayBook. Given names included James (18 times with mentions of 'his wife' [Elizabeth Graham], 'his son John', and 'his daughter' Margret), James Junr (3), John (10 times with mentions of 'his sister' [Margret?]), and Margret (2).

James Dailey appeared in the 1779 tax assessment for Hanover Precinct. He owned one of the smaller properties at fifteen acres and had only £15 of personal property. This is why I suspect he is the older James and not his son, James Jr.  William Brennen did not appear in the assessment.

By the time of the 1790 census, James Dailey had dissappeared from the Hanover (now Montgomery) area. 'Brennan' also does not appear in the Montgomery census.

One public family tree shows James 'Dailey' (1720-1772) married to Elizabeth Graham in Shawangunk. This is confirmed by the will of her father, Robert Graham, that states that she is married to James Dayly. The public tree, however, does not show a Margret among the many children of this couple. Perhaps the DayBook has revealed a previously unknown offspring of James Dailey and Elizabeth Graham?

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VAN KEUREN! July 28, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Thursday, July 28, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Hendrick Van Keuren

Hendrick (Hendrecus) Van Keuren Jr. purchased one-quarter pound of Indigo, a pair of wool cards, a paper of pins, and a gallon each of molasses and West Indian Rum...at the Colden store on this day, 150 years-ago.

Van Keuren Home on Goodwill Road

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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.

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Hendrick Van Keuren was about thirty years of age on this date. In the 1779 tax assessment for Hanover Precinct he had 215 acres of land and £570 of personal property.

At the start of the revolution he served as a Captain of one of the local companies of militia. My relatives, Samuel and Ezekiel Campbell, were in his company. In 1787 he was a trustee of the Montgomery Academy, a well regarded school for boys.

He lived close to the Goodwill church (see stone home above), had his children baptized there, and is proportedly buried there.

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STICKNEY! July 27, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Wednesday, July 27, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

James Stickney

James Stickney purchased five-and-one-half yards of Check Linen, two pounds of sugar, a pound of coffee, and a gallon of New York Rum at the Colden store, on this day, 250 years-ago.

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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.

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James Stickney married Mary Belknap just a few years prior to this date. Their first son was born in January of this year (1768). When the Revolutionary War started, they had six children.  James served in the local militia during the war, commissioned as an ensign in John Belknap's company (his brother-in-law?). Ruttenber, in his History of Orange County, states that James practiced as a physician in Newburgh. At any rate, this prolific and influential family settled in many parts of Orange and Ulster.

[Sources: public trees at ancestry.com]

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BROWN! July 26, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

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

Benoni Brown

Benoni (Benony) Brown bought three pounds of sugar, two gallons of New York Rum, two knives, and a fine comb at the Colden Store on this day, 250 years-ago.

Headstone of Ebenezer, son of Benoni Brown. Image Courtesy of Starr.

The name of 'Benoni' is one that has been passed down my family line. There are at least seven 'Benoni Campbells' in my family tree including my great-grandfather, grandfather and uncle. As the first male grandchild of my grandfather (Benoni), I suppose there was some pressure to slip 'Benoni' into my name, but I somehow escaped.

My Campbell ancestors who lived in the vicinity of the Colden Store did not include anyone with the name of Benoni (although it appears incorrectly in some genealogies.) The first appearance of the name in my line is with the birth of a grandson in 1800 to Joel Campbell (Joel appears several times in the DayBook). It is unlikely that the naming of Joel's grandson was inspired by Benoni Brown, but you never know.

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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.

===============================

Brown was not an uncommon name, and as it turns out, neither was 'Benoni.' Hence there is alot of confusion in on-line genealogies regarding this family. It does appear that Benoni had a son, Ebenezer, who served in the Revolutionary War and lived a long life. His very-legible headstone is shown above.  He was one of the many legacies of the Brown family who made Ulster County a stop along their way as they populated the new country. Ebenezer would have been about seventeen years-old on this date, and may have been a recipient of one of the two knives purchased by Benoni.

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RICE! July 25, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Monday, July 25, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Rice

Colden sold seven pounds of rice to four customers (twenty-eight pounds total) at his store on this day, 250 years-ago. Colden sold two pounds of rice in the prior September, but with that exception, no rice had been sold at the store until recently. It appears that Colden had brought back several seven pound sacks of rice from his recent procurement trip to New York.

Colden Day Book Entries for Rice for July 25, 1768.

This day at the store was the busiest yet recorded in the DayBook. The number of items sold totalled 182!

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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.

===============================

Just a few days prior, on July 18, 1768, news from South Carolina appeared in the New-York Post Boy. The dispatch bragged of the economy in that colony, pointing to the large exports of rice. "Thousands of barrels of rice" had been exported from South Carolina in the past year. Perhaps some of those exports had found their way north to New York.

The British Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities 1550-1820 contains this comment on 'Carolina Rice.'

"RICE from Carolina, one of the southern states of the United States of America. According to John Houghton, the growing of rice in that area was introduced by a Mr Ashby, who 'was encourag'd to send a hundred pound bag full of rice to Carolina: from which rice, I am told, came last year hither sixty tun' [Houghton]. According to Toussant-Samat, however, the introduction came about after some enterprising colonists planted rice found on board a ship wreck [Toussaint-Samat (1987)]. Whichever way rice was introduced, the growth of rice in these southern states suited the slave economy entrenched there. Certainly it was well established by the mid-eighteenth century, with a reference to rice carried from southern Carolina and Georgia in an act of 1765 [Acts (1765)]. Carolina rice may already have been distinguished by a higher proportion of starch compared with other rices, for instance for a later period Simmonds states that it consists of 80 per cent starch, and by a more rounded grain [Simmonds (1906)]. In which case rice from Carolina would easily have been distinguishable. It seems to have been promoted by fashionable retailers, and was offered both whole and GROUND [Tradecards (19c.)]."

Rice was sold at the Colden store on nine occasions. [The DayBook is not fully transcribed at this date, so there may be more sales not yet revealed. The rice sales appear to be clustered in the latter part of the DayBook which is the part not yet transcribed.] Eight of those transactions were for seven pounds of rice sold for two-and-one-third shillings (4d per pound). It appears that the rice came in seven pound bags.

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Y RUM vs. W RUM! July 23, 1768 at the Colden Store, Coldengham, New York

Saturday, July 23, 1768
Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.

Y Rum vs. W Rum

In May of 1768, New York and Boston agreed to boycott British goods in protest of the Townshend Duties. The July 21st edition of the New-York Journal contained a note from Boston stating that the imports from Britain had declined, but the duties collected had created a scarcity of cash. The newspaper contained no indication of the effect of the boycott or duties on the residents of New York.

Colden stocked his store largely with British imports. This week he had done a brisk business. Four of the days had sales of over one hundred items. Today, Saturday, July 23, 1768, (250 years-ago today) was one of those one-hundred-plus-item days.

Partial image of database results for 1768-07-23

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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.

===============================

There was one indication in today's DayBook that the shopping patterns at the Colden Store had changed from six months ago. It was revealed in the rum purchases.

Rum was divided into two main categories: 1) Rum imported from the West Indies which was darker, stronger, and more expensive and 2) Rum distilled in New York (or New England). In the Day Book they were distinguished as W Rum and Y Rum. When the 'W or Y' was omitted it was easy to identify them by the price difference. W Rum sold for five shillings and Y Rum for three-and-one-half shillings.

In the prior entries in the DayBook (see 1767 for example below) the split between Y Rum and W Rum purchases was about 50/50. It appears that customers were not adverse to the higher price of the W Rum as in many cases they diluted it and the stronger W Rum would go further. Another reason for W Rum purchase may have been a taste preference or even a statement of status.

Split between W and Y Rum in 1767

Of the 121 transactions on this day, 250 years-ago, twenty-six were for rum. However, a new preference for the Y Rum is evident. Only five gallons of the fifty-nine were for W Rum.

Did the store preferences reflect an act of protest? or was it just a matter of what was available in the store? This is not known to the author, but it is clear that the purchasing patterns had changed. The colonial protests would continue in 1769 until the Townshend Duties were repealed in 1770.

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