Clinch interacted with numerous people in the community surrounding St. George. In less that a month, his account for July/August 1861 showed transactions on behalf of seven neighbours. Guy Church, Isaac Knight, John McCallum, Gilman Knight, Samuel Craig, Joseph Labatt, Mr. Epes, Mrs. Baxter, Mrs. Downs,and a Mr. Clayborn all charged purchases to his account in the latter part of 1861. These neighbours received cash, tobacco, flour tea, molasses, pork, a bottle of red ink, and a bedcord all added to Clinch's account. Clinch also borrowed $10 from Dewar for a cash advance to his wife on Dec. 19, 1861. Clinch usally paid his account at the Dewar store with flour or cash.
Entries such as these in John Dewar's ledgers offer a picture of the social life and the exchanges of commodities in a town such as St. George in the nineteenth century. The general store acted not only as a place to purchase goods but also as a banker and a third party intermediary. Tracking individuals frequent visits to the store through ledgers showed that it was indeed the focal point of the community.
Ledgers in the collection of the Charlotte County Archives in St. Andrews offer many clues to how people interacted in the nineteenth century. They show how people paid their bills, received remuneration for their labor, their indebtedness to the store, the frequency of their purchases and their shopping patterns.
Cash money did not necessarily change hands at the
general store since hard currency, in the form of coins and paper money,
was not always available, especially at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Entries showed that customers frequently traded produce and other goods
such as fish, lumber, shingles, homespun cloth, strawberries, flour and
even live animals such as pigs or turkeys to settle their accounts.
Hugh O'Hara, a weaver of St. Andrews parish
for instance, traded his homespun cloth in Henry Swift's store in
St. Andrews in 1856 and 1857 for store goods.
Frequently customers worked for the store owner or someone else to
earn credits at the store. Most jobs had a specific cash value, such as
mending shoes, making clothes, hauling hay or boards,digging potatoes,
shingling, road work or general labour.
In the 1870's a day's work was valued at about $1
a day for certain kinds of labor, while specialized skills such as carpentry
or blacksmithing might demand more. The value of hauling goods such as
oats, sand, fish, or lumber varied on the distance and the weight of the
cargo.
Reading store ledgers such as the ones at the Charlotte County Archives
also dispel common notions about the past. We often think that our ancestors
lived a very restricted life with very few "luxury goods". Some of the
ledgers showed that customers bought flour, candles, homespun cloth, turnips,
and apples and rum at the general stores. But they could also buy velvet,
expensive spices and dyes, brandy, a large variety of different kinds of
cloth including silk, and even chocolates.
Looking at the relative value of goods in the ledgers gave an idea of the cost of living in the past. A gallon of molasses cost $0.37, a pound of sugar $0.10, butter $0.15 a pound, tea $0.40 a pound and four dozen eggs $0.40 at John Dewar's in 1861. Half dozen fresh fish cost only $0.08 and a yard of calico $0.13. Homespun cloth sold for $0.65 a yard. Compared to day's wages, tea and homespun cloth were fairly expensive commodities, one a luxury but unnecessary item, the other a necessity to keep warm while working in the woods or on the sea.
Store ledgers also showed the relative prosperity and indebtedness of some of the customers. Some customers made frequent purchases and only settled their accounts at harvest time, or at the end of fishing season while others always paid their bills in cash at the time of purchase. At the end of the year, some carried over their debts and hoped for better times.
Examining nineteenth century store ledgers and account
books adds a whole new dimension to finding meaning about the past. Looking
at them as another facet of social history can answer important questions
that other documents like Census data never answer. It puts perhaps a human
face on the many interactions that make up our collective history.