Manuscript Group 130, Thomas Nesbitt (1760-1819), Merchant Record books, 1787-1826

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Manuscript Group 130,
Thomas Nesbitt (1760-1819), Merchant

Record books, 1787-1826, 0.75
linear feet / 21 volumes

Call Number: MG 130 + Box and
Folder Number

Summary

• Biographical
  Note

• Provenance
  Note

• Scope
  and Content Note

• Related
  Collections

• Item
  List

Summary:

Twenty-one volumes of daybooks and account
books kept by Thomas Nesbitt, a merchant who operated in Millstone, Mount
Pleasant, Plainfield, Raritan Bridge, Scotch Plains, and Springfield, New
Jersey.  Thomas Nesbitt was born in County Armagh, Ireland and came to
America in 1784.  His brother, Hugh, became a business partner of John
Ralston and his son, also Hugh, married Ralston’s daughter.

Gift of Mrs. E. J. Rood, 1927.

Biographical
Note:

Thomas Nesbitt (1760-1819) emigrated from
County Armagh, Ireland to the United States in 1784 probably with his brother
Hugh Nesbitt.  He eventually settled in New Jersey, moving progressively
west over the years from Springfield, Scotch Plains, and Plainfield, then
probably part of Essex County (now in Union County) to Millstone, Mount
Pleasant, Raritan Bridge, and finally Somerville, in Somerset County.  He
married, had at least one son, Hugh, and operated a general store in Somerville
and probably other towns in New Jersey (it is unclear how many stores he had
because of changing town names and borders).

On January 27, 1818, Hugh Nesbitt (d.
1827), Thomas’s son, married Mary Ann Ralston, the daughter of John and
Margaret Ralston, also from County Armagh, Ireland.  John Ralston, who
lived in Mendham, New Jersey (part of which was later called Ralston), was a
merchant and the partner of Hugh Nesbitt, Thomas’s brother.  Hugh (d.
1827) joined his father’s business in Somerville until Thomas Nesbitt’s
death in 1819, at which time he moved with his family to Mendham where he became
a farmer and businessman.  Hugh and Mary Ann Nesbitt had three children
before Hugh’s death in 1827.  Their only son was named after Mary Ann’s
father, John Ralston Nesbitt.

Sources:

Hopler, Martha G., et al. The Mendhams
(Mendham Township Committee: Brookside New Jersey, 1964), pgs. 83-89.

Provenance
Note:

This collection was donated by Mrs. E. J.
Rood of Mendham, New Jersey in May 1927 (accession numbers M2226).

Scope
and Content Note:

The Thomas Nesbitt Records consist of
twenty-one volumes of daybooks, account books, and a notebook, used in Nesbitt’s
general store.  The record books date from 1787-1826 and document the
purchase or barter of dry and wet goods, such as butter, molasses,
handkerchiefs, buttons, rum, and spirits. The volumes are arranged by record
type and then by date.

The collection contains sixteen daybooks,
dating from 1787-1826, and labeled with the various town headings of
Springfield, Scotch Plains, Plainfield, Millstone, Mount Pleasant, Raritan
Bridge, Somerville, and Mendham.  The series of daybook entries from the
last town, Mendham, date from 1821-1826, and are probably from either Thomas
Nesbitt’s brother, Hugh Nesbitt, who ran a store in Mendham, or from his son,
also named Hugh, who lived there.  The daybook entries are chronological
and record customer name, purchase, and price.

The collection contains four account
books, dating from 1788-1816.  Two of the volumes were labeled as
“Ledger C” and “Ledger F,” while two have missing covers and
are therefore unlabelled.  The volumes all refer to other ledgers, for
example “Ledger E.”  The accounts are by customer and contain
debit and credit sides, the former of which includes date, item purchased, and
price, while the latter includes date, and how the debt was paid, for example
“by cash,” “by bushels of corn,” or “by work at a
wagon.”  Each of the account books contains an index.

The remaining item in the collection is a
small notebook containing a list of boarders, a recipe for dying fabric or yarn
blue, and an “account of work at the sawmill.”  The notebook
dates from 1810-1813.

Related
Collections:

Manuscript Group 152, John Ralston
(d. 1819) Records

See the records/papers
of other merchants.

Item List:

OS = Oversize

Processed by Kim Charlton, September 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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