Amherst (Mass.)?

This unnamed grocer’s daybook covers the period of September 25, 1888 to February 13, 1890. Most of the customers make frequent, even daily, purchases, generally buying only a few items of food at a time, with occasional pairs of shoes, chimneys, or snow shovels in addition. Prepared foods, such as doughnuts, cupcakes, tumblers of jelly, cookies, and rolls were sold along with basic staples – apples, eggs, oranges, raisins, butter, salt, starch, lard, chocolate, cheese, milk. The entries are preceded by numbers which probably refer to the patrons’ accounts in the storekeeper’s ledger.

The inside front cover bears a dealer’s notation “Amherst ledger.” While the possibility exists that this is an Amherst, Massachusetts grocer’s account book (some of the family names are found in the Amherst Directory for 1895-Dickinson, Cowles, Doolittle, Knowlton, Pease, Rose, Hamlin, Hall, Holmes, Hunt, Parker), almost none of the particular members of the families listed in the account book matches a name in the directory. This seems to indicate it is unlikely that this is an Amherst, Massachusetts grocer. Perhaps the book was an item in a batch of materials from Amherst, New Hampshire, although very few of the family names appear in town histories. Further investigations might reveal this is from a town of another name altogether.