Finding Aids

The account books document a general store situated in Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, likely owned in part by Jeremiah Brown (1749-1831). Brown was a successful businessman, owning a grist mill, sawmill, and slate quarries. The general store was a major center of exchange, which included a mix of cash and barter transactions, the latter including both goods and labor.

Lynch and Stoughton was a New York mercantile firm that traded extensively with Spain, Portugal, Holland, the West Indies, Florida, Ireland, and China, in the coasting trade between Pennsylvania and New England, and with the interior of New York State. The ledger documents the firm's mercantile business between 1783 and 1788. The ledger appears to have later been passed down through several generations of the Stow family of New York and Michigan, who used it as a scrapbook for scrap paper and practicing penmanship.

William J. Barnard (1867-1957) was a merchant and general storekeeper of Westtown, Pennsylvania, and later of Newark, Delaware. The collection contains four account books that describe his dealings in produce, sponges, and lumber at various points in the Midwest and Delaware Valley.