Manuscript Group 120, Arthur Lefferson (1739-ca. 1802), Tanner and currier Account book, 1775-1792
Archives
Documents, Manuscripts, Maps, & Photographs
Manuscript Group 120,
Arthur Lefferson (1739-ca. 1802), Tanner and currier
Account book, 1775-1792, 0.2
linear feet / 1 volume
Call Number: MG 120
Financial records kept by Arthur Lefferson
(1739-1802/03), a tanner, currier, shoemaker, and repairman in Upper Freehold
Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Purchase, 1928.
Arthur Lefferson, born April 22, 1739, was
a tanner, currier, shoemaker, and repairman in Upper Freehold Township in
Monmouth County, New Jersey. A son of Leffert Lefferson (1711-1755) and
Janetje Williamson, Arthurs siblings included Oukey Lefferson (1747-1809),
Anna Van Cleef (b. 1741), Jane Lefferson (1745-1818), and Mary Polhemus (fl.
1739-1781). Prior to the General Militia Muster of 1776, Lefferson
volunteered for the local militia. When he died sometime after December
15, 1802 but before January 9, 1803, Arthur Lefferson was unmarried and without
children.
Sources:
Abstracts of Wills Vol. 10: 1801-1805. New
Jersey Archives: First Series Vol. 39.
Adelberg, Michael S. Roster
of the People of Revolutionary Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Clearfield Company, Inc: Baltimore, Maryland, 1997.
Ellis, Franklin. History of Monmouth
County, New Jersey. Philadelphia: R.T. Peck & Co., 1885.
Miles, Ann Pette. Monmouth Families.
King William, Virginia: Anne Pette Miles, 1980.
Storms, F. Dean. History of Allentown
Presbyterian Church 1720-1970. Allentown, New Jersey, 1970.
Weiss, Henry Bischoff. Early Tanning
and Currying in New Jersey. Trenton, New Jersey Agricultural Society, 1959
(pamphlet).
The account book was purchased by The New
Jersey Historical Society in 1928 and assigned the accession number M2306.
The records consist of an account book
dating from 1775-1792 that was kept by Arthur Lefferson. The volume tracks
the sale of skins, hides, shoes and other transactions such as charges for shoe
repair and labor (both personal and slave labor costs). The accounts are
indexed. The volume also contains a small number of notes including two
subpoenas, a few receipts, and an estate record.
The first subpoena (July 29, 1784), issued
by the court in Freehold, calls for Mr. Leffersons testimony in a “plea
for partition” case between William Hendrickson and William Grover.
Grover, an English sympathizer, was one of many loyalists who were forced to
forfeit their land for redistribution in an act of April 18, 1778, an act which
probably precipitated the above land dispute. The second subpoena
(September 9, 1784), issued by the Supreme Court in Trenton, concerns the same
case and parties. Both notices were signed “Houston,” who was
probably the Trenton based Supreme Court clerk, William C. Houston (clerk from
1781 until his death in 1788).
The estate record (December 6, 1804),
which establishes payment procedures for the procurement of Mr. Leffersons
“real and personal estate,” bears the signatures of Robert Montgomery
and James Bruere, the executers of Mr. Leffersons will in 1803. The
latter were also trustees of the Allentown Presbyterian Church, an institution
that was built on land acquired from, among others, Lefferts Lefferson, Arthur
Leffersons father.
The remaining interleafed items include an
account of wagon building expenses of Mr. Lefferson, a note from William
Hendrickson regarding money to be sent him by his “Negro boy,” and an
advertisement of items at a vendors market.
See other curriers’
records.
See other tanners’
records.
Processed by Jeff McMillan, August 2000 as part of the “Farm to
City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications
and Records Commission.
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