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Richard E. Lloyd Daybook, 1859-1862Finding AidFinding aid prepared by Lisa May.Encoding funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.2002
Administrative InformationAcquired from: Charles Apfelbaum, 1987. Processed by Lisa May, February 1989. Preferred CitationCite as: Richard E. Lloyd Daybook (MS 229). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst. The collection is open for research. Return to the Table of Contents Biographical NoteRichard E. Lloyd was born in 1834 in Wales. By 1859 he had moved to Fair Haven, Vermont, and opened a general store. The 1860 census lists him as unmarried, boarding with townspeople. His net worth was set at $400. Over the next ten years, Lloyd's wealth increased. By 1869 he owned three buildings on Main Street in Fair Haven: his house, the store, and a building he rented out. The 1870 census values his personal estate at $6000 and his real estate at $9000. By 1870, Lloyd had married a Welsh-born woman and had three children. His household also included his clerk, the clerk's wife, and a servant. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and Contents of the CollectionThe ledger is a single-volume daybook for the years 1859-1862. The pages are numbered on both sides, from 1-452; the last page is unnumbered. Entries were made at the time of purchase and list items purchased, the price per measure, and payment. Most entries are headed with a name, so family and individual-buying habits are also documented. Each account is numbered, suggesting that final accounts were kept in another ledger. Account numbers as high as 533 appear in the first few pages, indicating this was probably not Lloyd's opening ledger. Lloyd's store offered a wide variety of goods: fabrics, ready-made clothes, cutlery and tinware, garden seeds, fresh fruits and nuts, eggs and dairy products, even jewelry. Most transactions were charges, with some people paying cash. Lloyd accepted both goods and services for credit. Making clothes was the most frequent means of credit. It is unclear whether these clothes were for Lloyd personally or for sale in the store. The majority of Lloyd's customers were Welsh, with names like Lloyd, Griffith, Morgan, and Thomas, reflecting an important development in Fair Haven's history. In these years the town had a large Welsh population. Slate quarries, developing in the 1840s, had attracted Welsh miners from Pennsylvania and from Wales. Women rarely appear in this ledger, although it is possible that credit goods or services were produced by women while the actual credits were listed under their husbands or fathers. Women sometimes earned credit under their own names by sewing or washing. Return to the Table of Contents Search TermsReturn to the Table of Contents |
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