Hotchkiss, Moses

[CONNECTICUT] [ACCOUNT BOOK] Working Account Book

Derby, CT: 1781-1841. Hardcover. 85 numbered pages. 41 x 16.5 cm. A detailed record of work, barter, and neighborhood exchange in Revolutionary-era Derby, Connecticut. Containing accounts dating as early as 1781, the account book of Moses Hotchkiss (1757-1799) documents the varied labor and practical skills that sustained a community situated at the confluence of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Rivers.

Hotchkiss's entries record carpentry, blacksmithing, framing, shaving shingles, butchering, shoveling dung, picking corn, branding whips, splitting rails, repairing rakes and plows, smoking meat, and working at cider mills and sawmills. A particularly notable entry records his framing of a "smallpox house" for Edward Craft in 1781. In exchange for his labor, he received firewood, rye, a walnut tree, barrels of cider, cheese, beef, sheep, lamb, leather, potatoes, turnips, flax, and other goods. Many receipts bear the signatures of both Hotchkiss and the person with whom he dealt: others record payments made on a neighbor's behalf. Together, these transactions offer a closely observed picture of an economy sustained by skilled labor, agricultural produce, and reciprocal obligations.

Hotchkiss had served in the Revolutionary War; a record associated with the July 1779 alarm documents his return of horses used in the Holbrook Company of Militia. The account book also connects him with neighbors identified as Revolutionary War participants, including Joseph Loveland, Jeremiah "Jere" Burrell, Samuel Hall, John Coe, Capt. Enos Smith, Capt. Reuben Tucker, and Benjamin Moulthrop, the last also a veteran of the French and Indian War. Another associate, John Humphreys, was the brother of diplomat David Humphreys.

The volume later belonged to Clifford L. French (1876-1942) of Derby, whose signature appears within. French was the son of Civil War pensioner Samuel Hotchkiss French (1840-1885) and the grandson of Phoebe (Hotchkiss) French (1814-1886), suggesting that the book descended through the family. The final two pages of entries, following the leaf bearing Clifford's signature, are in a different hand and date from August 1838 to January 1841. These later accounts chiefly concern farm foodstuffs, extending the volume's record of local exchange into the nineteenth century. Unidentified ex-libris bookplate affixed to verso of front cover. Covers heavily rubbed with some loss to spine. Tan calf. Very good. Item #5187

Price: $4,725.00