Manuscript Group 112, Phinehas Horton (fl. 1809-1835), Merchant Record Books, 1802-1852

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Manuscript Group 112,
Phinehas Horton (fl. 1809-1835), Merchant

Record Books, 1802-1852, 0.5
linear feet / 5 volumes

Call Number: MG 112(os)

Summary

• Biographical
  Note

• Provenance
  Note

• Scope
  and Content Note

• Related
  Collections

• Item
  List

Summary:

Financial records of Phinehas
Horton, Daniel Horton, John Hopler, Abigail Oles, and Isaac Lyon.  The
account books and daybooks related to a wide range of services, including the
sale of farm animals and products, blacksmithing (Isaac Lyon), harvesting,
sewing, and dyeing.  Includes some records retained by Phinehas Horton as
Justice of the Peace in Morris County and by Daniel Horton as Constable and
later as Justice of the Morris County Court for the Trial of Small Causes.
Among the records retained by Daniel Horton are a list of marriages which he
solemnized between 1802 and 1835.

Biographical
Note:

Phinehas Horton owned a general store in
Morris County, New Jersey.  He married Esther ( ) of Chester, Morris
County, New Jersey on August 21, 1809.  Phinehas Horton was one of the
executors of Daniel Horton’s will.

Provenance
Note:

This collection was acquired in 1934 and
was assigned the accession number M2941.

Scope
and Content Note:

This collection contains three volumes of
account books, one daybook, and one wage book dating from 1802-1852.
Phinehas Horton kept two of these account books while the third was kept by
Isaac Lyon, and the fourth by Abigail Oles and Daniel Horton.  The wage
book was kept by John Hoplar.  However, someone at a later date labeled all
of the volumes “Phinehas Horton’s Account Book.”

Phinehas Horton kept a daybook dating from
1809-1810 and an account book dating from 1821-1835 that document his general
store in Morris County.  The daybook contains entries for the date,
customer, product sold, and cost.  Horton sold such goods as powder, shot,
glass, “knit” needles, sewing needles, salt, butter, and calico.

The account book kept by Phinehas Horton
dating from 1821-1835 includes a name index and has entries for the customer,
date, and cost.  It also includes coded entries possibly referring to other
account books, loose leafed receipts including one for a purchase of 300 sheep,
and a note to any constable of Morris County signed by Daniel Horton.
There are also two discharge papers for Private Alexander Hoplar of the Second
Regiment of the New Jersey Cavalry dated 1863 and 1865.

Isaac Lyon’s account book dates from
1811-1814 and tracks his blacksmith business.  This account book includes
entries for the date, customer’s name, service provided, and cost.  Lyon
only indicates that he has provided “blacksmithing” for his customers
and not a specific task.

The third volume was used by Abigail Oles,
a farmer in Flanders, Morris County, New Jersey and Daniel Horton a merchant in
Morris County, New Jersey.  The Abigail Oles section of the account book
dates from 1813-1814 and has entries for the date, customer, produce sold and
cost.  She sold such goods as apples, hay, butter, rye, corn, flour and
buckwheat.

Daniel Horton’s accounts date from
1819-1835 and have entries for the date, customer, goods sold and cost.  He
sold such goods as rye, pork, rye flour, buckwheat flour and potatoes.  The
volume also includes some entries, many of them on loose-leaf papers, related to
Daniel Horton’s duties as constable and Justice of the Morris County Court of
Small Causes, a recipe for a cure for “Bots in Horses,” a list of
marriages performed by Daniel Horton from 1802-1835, and estate accounts for
Nathaniel Terry’s will and Daniel Horton’s will.

John Hopler’s wage book dates from
1826-1852 and has entries for the date, name, number of days worked, and amount
paid.  He does not indicate what kind of work he was paying for.

Related
Collections:

For more information on Phinehas and
Daniel Horton see:

Manuscript Group 85,
Chester Township, New Jersey Overseers of the Poor Records

Item List:

Processed by James Lewis, July 2001 as part of the “Farm to City”
project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records
Commission.

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