James Leland Daybook
Owner of a general store in Enfield, Massachusetts. Includes notations for the sale of a wide variety of goods (notably Know Nothing hats), names of customers (both individuals, particularly Irish, and businesses), and types of payment (cash, barter, and services).
Enfield was among the Western Massachusetts towns abolished in 1938 to allow the Swift River Valley to be flooded, thereby creating the Quabbin Reservoir to provide Boston with water.
James Leland kept this detailed daybook at a busy general store in Enfield, Massachusetts. The 360 pages record accounts over a five month period with January settlements in the final pages.
Leland sold a wide variety of goods including palm leaf hats, coats, kid gloves, shawls, oil, tacks, nails, shot, paper, tea, snuff, saleratus (leavening agent), eggs, butter, and cheese. He dealt with a large number of men, women and businesses.
Leland took in cash, or barter in the form of palm leaf hats ($0.11 each), braid, shoes, butter, eggs, or services such as tailoring.
Some of the customers are early Irish in the area, Dennis Sheehan and Benjamin Sullivan. There are also sales of Know Nothing hats (p. 57), reflecting local reaction to Catholic immigrants.
A selection of names and places listed are: Levi Lombard; Minot Manufacturing Co.; Swift River Co.; J.M. Crosby, tailor, Enfield; Leland and Smith Co.; and Leonard Woods.
The collection is open for research.
Cite as: James Leland Store Journal (MS 94). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Acquired from Donald W. Howe, 1960.
Processed by Ruth Owen Jones, October 1985.