Gabriel and John W. Wells invoice book

An invoice book, 1812-1817, for items purchased for a general store in New York owned by Gabriel and John W. Wells. In this same volume is an account book, 1832-1836, containing debits and credits for both a store and a farm, listing sums in pounds, shillings, and pence.

The Wells bought various items: groceries; supplies for cooking, sewing, shooting, and smoking; clothing; tableware; equipment for horses; and school supplies. Other items include spectacles, toothbrushes, Bibles, hymn books, umbrellas, and Jew's harps. The merchants with whom the Wells traded were numerous, and included members of the Adee and Conger families, Nathaniel Wells & Co., William Smith, Tunis Quick, Halsey and Ludlum, H. Weed, J. G. Pierson & Brothers, and Townsend & Horsfield. One invoice dating in December 1816 includes materials purchased from A. Tappan & Co.

The account book, written by an unidentified individual (though likely a member of the Wells family) records items sold in a general store, renting out oxen, selling brick and dietary staples, and a few books. The purchases indicate the author had a farm as he paid for logging, wintering his oxen, husking corn, stacking hay, etc. Business was primarily done with individuals, including George and Josiah Colvin, Samuel G. Conkling, Ezra T. Faxon, Orsamoor and Richard S. Horton, Bingham and Caleb Patterson, and Morrison Sacket.

Pasted inside the front cover and on the first leaf are poems and a short story clipped from newspapers. Loose items, including two newspaper clippings and a fragment receipt, are housed in a separate folder.