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[identification of item], [box #, folder #], Shenandoah County Mill Ledger, 1869-1944, SC 0178, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va.
Gift of Montgomery County Historical Society (MCHS), Rockville, Maryland, September 2006.
Previously donated to MCHS by a private donor residing in Rockville, Maryland, whose father had acquired the ledger from a Shenandoah Valley book dealer.
Text block preserved; Pages 461-466 and 471-478 were missing upon receipt. Boards discarded due to previous water and mold damage. Blank pages were removed [pp. 165-234, 241-288, 293-416, 433-460]. Folio 289-292 had green script in an illegible hand on p.291 and was discarded.
In order to streamline the process of applying collection numbers, Special Collections staff completed a large-scale renumbering campaign in 2017-2018.
This account ledger appears to document the business transactions of a Shenandoah County grist or sawmill, the exact location of which is unknown. Notes from a previous owner speculate that it is either Manor Mill or another mill west of New Market, perhaps near Quicksburg, on the Shenandoah River north of B.G. Manor. Names within the ledger correspond to those of the Lee Magisterial District which includes the town of New Market, Virginia.
The Shenandoah County Mill Ledger, 1869-1944, consists of one disbound ledger (10"x16"x1") holding approximately 100 numbered pages from a Guggenheimer and Weil, Stationers of Balto. Md. blank book. Account entries list: commodity, purchaser, type, amount and price. Commodities mentioned include: seeds, corn meal, eggs, brooms, tubs, crockery, apples, cash, and shoes, among other items. Work for hire is also recorded. Some activities listed are: carpentry, sharpening equipment, hauling wood and rock, making gates and cleaning the mill race. What appear to be traveling sales accounts appear around 1941. Place names Greencastle, Pennsylvania, Sharpsburg and Clearspring, Maryland, and Monroe County, Tennessee are mentioned. An index of personal names is listed in the first pages of the ledger. A small selection of the account names mentioned are: Clem, Funkhouser, Goladay, Henkle, Hess, Hoover, Newman, Olinger, and Pence.
Original pagination retained.