Another Day, Another Account Book

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William Poynz by Gainsborough (1762) - Wearing leather breeches

Another day, another account book and a trip to the Worcester Historical Museum.  This time, it was the account book of JosephNewell, a tailor from New Braintree, a town in central Massachusetts, a worldaway from the bustling 18^th century seaport city of Newport, RhodeIsland.  These books are different inmany ways, most notably, Joseph Newell’s book shows its age. The once colorful coveris faded and torn, the pages, especially the first ones, are brittle and water spotted,often hard to read, especially at the edges – making the dates of the entriesdifficult to decipher. Despite the condition issues, the book is still atreasure. (At least for us clothing geeks).  Filled with page after page of entries thatrepresent a man's livelihood, this book, like Mr. Gould's, was easier to read the more youlooked at it, though Mr. Newell’s handwriting posed more of a challenge – hewrote in a tiny, fine-lined script, in contrast to Mr. Gould rather consistent,neat penmanship.  (I wish we could sharea photo, but neither site permits photography and the books are too delicateto photocopy.
After perusing several pages, you get a good idea of thetypes of items being made and what was being accepting as payment.  Similar to what we found in the Newport book,Mr. Newell is loaning money and/or making payments in cash– probably because, mostoften, cash is what shows up on the credit side of his ledger. He occasionally trades goods forother goods, wheat for rye, for example.  He also is trading his time. Though it’s notclear what his is doing in trade (he doesn’t say), but he is charging 2shillings per day for his labor. By way of comparison, he is charging anywherefrom 4 shillings to 4 shillings/9 pence to make a pair of breeches.  So can we conclude that it took roughly 2 days forhim to make a pair of breeches?
Though he made coats, “jacets, “trousis", great coats,drawers, a cloak, and did lots of mending, Mr. Newell’s specialty was leatherbreeches – made of sheep skin, deer skin, lamb skin and “moos”.  I need to spend some more time studying theprices, as sometimes it appears that he included the skins in the cost, he sometimes lists the skin cost separately.

Leather Breeches Maker, English Advertisement

 Speaking of prices, we see a stark contrastof the seemingly inflated prices listed in the Newport account books whencompared to those in New Braintree. We’ll most certainly need the help ofsomeone experienced in numismatics (vocabulary word of the day) to give us amore informed perspective on the value of money  and how it varied by colony,year, etc.   Lots of things to learnhere, as we continue to scratch the surface!