Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

This ledger documents a general store in Tyler County, probably near Middlebourne, the county seat. Although fairly routine entries characterize customer purchases, the volume also documents purchases from wholesale merchants, beginning on page 251. Included are such firms as Hubbard and Paull, and Jos. Speidel, both of Wheeling; Ed Roome of Sistersville; and Burgunder Brothers and Company, of Columbus, Ohio. Also, the ledger often lists the occupations of the store's customers. Included are John Gates, an oil rig builder (reflecting the emergence of the local oil business) and a number of customers connected to a local woolen mill.

John Gallaher, Christian Ansbrutz, and Caleb Bleakmor started a general store partnership in 1853. Prior to that date, Gallaher operated a store in Moundsville, which is documented in the first 90 pages of the daybook. The daybook follows the partnership for only six months (until September 1853), but then another Moundsville general store (involving Bleakmor) used the daybook during 1856. In the 1850 census, Bleakmor was listed as a constable, age 49, born in Maryland; and Ansbrutz was listed as a miller, age 47, born in France, worth $23,000. Only Gallaher, a 53-year-old Irishman worth $12,000, was listed as a merchant. From the evidence in the daybook, it appears that the partnership was short-lived.

Inventory and Book Accounts. This volume contains a 66-page inventory of goods on hand and their prices in a Tyler County general store in January 1877. The inventory is divided into the following categories: fancy groceries, groceries, men's shoes, ladies' shoes, children's shoes, overshoes, dress goods, wall paper, housewares, and other. Starting on page 71 is a four-page list of the book accounts of the store's customers, presumably on that same date.

The Cordray Carriage Company was a short-lived business in Fairmont, WV. The ledger lists only the customers and the amount they owed T.L. Cordray, the proprietor of the Carriage Company. The ledger does not list the services for which the customers were charged. However, one itemized account invoice on an inserted piece of paper suggests that the Cordray Carriage Company repaired vehicles. For H.O. Amos, from 1907 through 1911, the Company repaired couplings, repaired and painted the body, repaired the interior, raised the body, and tightened and repaired the fenders, for a total charge of $118. The ledger includes more than 400 customers.

A. H. Breckstein was a Jewish merchant who operated a clothing store in the boom town of Richwood, in Nicholas County. Volume 10 is a cash book detailing daily transactions in the store, both sales and expenses, for part of 1910, and consistently for the period 1928 to 1936. There are also monthly accountings of both cash and credit sales as well as expenses. Volume 11 documents sales and purchases of clothing for the period 1926 to 1934. The sales portion of this volume repeats information available in volume 10. Volume 12 is a ledger of accounts payable for the period 1921-1928, showing the firms from which Breckstein purchased his goods. Included are companies in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and New York.

These volumes were written by Albert S. Hayden, Notary Public in and for the county of Marion and the state of West Virginia. He recorded handwritten copies of promissory notes and bills presented at Fairmont, WV banks for redemption, which were protested by the First National Bank of Fairmont's cashier. The ledgers also list the date protested, by whom, and the notices mailed to note signers. Most notes originated in West Virginia, but some originated in Ohio. Volume 16a covers 1870-1873. Volume 16b covers 1875-1876.

Anthony Zidn operated a grocery and dry goods store outside of Fairmont on RFD #2. Zidn was an immigrant from the Middle East (perhaps Armenia, as suggested by the fact he kept his accounts in Persian and had a Christian name). These three ledgers document his business, although most of the information is written in Persian.

Jacob Hornbrook was born in Tavistock, England, in 1812 and moved with his parents to Wheeling when he was a small child. Jacob's father ran a small [business?] in Wheeling. As a young man, Jacob began a mercantile business buying and selling produce on the flatboats travelling on the Ohio River. He later started a notions store, purchased interest in a steamship line and the First National Bank, and was president and owned stock in the Wheeling Gas Company. These three books, a journal (volume 20; 1847-1874), a ledger (volume 21; 1847-1874), and a cash book (volume 22; 1845-1874), document his business interests, investments, and personal expenses during the last three decades of his life. Although he remained an active investor, Hornbrook retired from his mercantile business in 1855 with an estate valued at more than $30,000. In 1852, he moved to what he called "Forest Home" near Wheeling Park, and he served in the West Virginia legislature during the Civil War.