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

 

 

 

 

 


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:

 

 


Title

Dates

Box

Folder
 

Daybook – Springfield

 

July 1787-March 1788

 

1

 

1

 

Daybook – Scotch Plains

 

Aug 1791-May 1792

 

1

 

2

 

Daybook – Scotch Plains

 

May 1792-Feb 1793

 

1

 

3

 

Daybook – Plainfield

 

March 1793-Dec 1793

 

1

 

4

 

Daybook – Plainfield

 

Dec 1793-Aug 1794

 

1

 

5

 

Daybook – Plainfield

 

July 1795-Nov 1795

 

1

 

6

 

Daybook – Millstone

 

June 1796-Sept 1796

 

1

 

7

 

Daybook – Millstone / Mount
Pleasant

 

Nov 1797-Dec 1797 / Jan 1798-Dec
1798

 

1

 

8

 

Daybook – Mount Pleasant / Raritan
Bridge

 

Jan 1799-June 1801 / June 1801-July
1801

 

1

 

9

 

Daybook – Raritan Bridge

 

July 1801-Nov 1802

 

1

 

10

 

Daybook – Raritan Bridge /
Bedminster

 

Dec 1802-June 1804 / June 1822-April
1825

 

1

 

11

 

Daybook – Raritan Bridge

 

Feb 1806-Nov 1807

 

1

 

12

 

Daybook – Raritan Bridge

 

Nov 1807- July 1809

 

2

 

1

 

Daybook – Raritan Bridge

 

June 1812-Feb 1816

 

2

 

2

 

Daybook – Somerville

 

June 1815-March 1816

 

3(OS)

 

Daybook – Somerville / Mendham

 

March 1816-April 1818 / April
1821-Sept 1826

 

4(OS)

 

“Sundry accounts to H.
Nesbitt”

 

May 1817-Dec 1821

 

4(OS)

 

Account book – “Ledger
C”

 

1788-1797

 

2

 

3

 

Account book

 

1789-1797

 

2

 

4

 

Account book – “Ledger
F”

 

1792-1794

 

2

 

5

 

Account book

 

1804-1816

 

5(OS)

 

Notebook

 

1810-1811, 1813

 

2

 

6

 

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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