Item #896 General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger. W. C. Woodworth.
General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.
General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.
General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.
General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.
General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.
Women and Trade in Areas Opened-Up By The Erie Canal

General Store, Orchard Supplies & Outfitter’s Ledger.

Ulysses, New York: 1847-50. Item #896

Folio. 320 x 210 mm., [13 x 8 ½ inches].  Manuscript in ink.  461 pp. Contemporary reverse sheep binding; worn but sound.  Text block tight and handwriting very legible. 


This is an unusually comprehensive ledger belonging to the W.C. Woodworth Company of Ulysses, New York. The company seems to have operated a general store in the town of Ulysses (currently known as Trumansburg) but apparently engaged in shipping fruit and vegetables across the Northeastern United States. The ledger begins with an alphabetical index to the names of the hundreds of customers served by the Woodworth Company. The remainder of the book is comprised of tens of thousands of entries recording products sold, the customers to whom they were sold, the price they were sold for, and the date that the transaction took place.


Among the numerous companies and farms that Woodworth supplied are nearly 40 accounts of local women who established credit for goods purchased.  Many of the accounts ongoing and notes at the bottom of pages show that balances are transferred to the next ledger suggesting a continued business relationship between the women purchasers and Woodworth’s General Store.  The number of transactions and amounts carried forward also suggest that these women customers may have been running boarding house, worked as teacher or governesses, cooks, seamstresses, as well as homemakers.


While the Woodworth Company specialized in the sale of produce, the general store sold a remarkable array of items. Included in the list of items in this ledger are foodstuffs such as molasses, sugar, ginger, alcohol, mackerel, pepper, starch, salt, codfish, tea, veal, butter, coffee, corn, eggs, rice, and raisins, to name but a portion. Selling even better than foodstuffs were household items including nails, screws, various tools, oil, shingles, candles, lead, razor straps, brushes, powder & shot, paint, knives, rawhide, and pencils. Again, this list represents but a sample of goods sold by Woodworth. The store carried a massive stock of various types of cloth, ribbons, buttons, and other sewing needs. Perhaps the most commonly sold item was tobacco.


The Woodworth store must have been a welcome outpost in a relatively unsettled area of backwoods New York, providing a selection of items rivaling the busy markets of New York City. This vast selection of products was doubtlessly enabled by the construction of the New York Canal System, with the Seneca Canal running very near to the Town of Ulysses. 


Evidence of the canal exists in the ledger with several pages of entries devoted to sales made to various canal boats. Among the boats mentioned is the W.C. Woodworth, which was obviously a company boat and the barge, Ulysses.  The records show the cost of operating a canal boat and hauling fees for moving fruits and vegitable to market.  A receipt for the construction of the vessel is included in the ledger.


One of Woodworth’s important customers was James Monroe Mattison owner of the Jacksonville Nursery established in Ulysses in1845.  It was a newly developing business during the period when the region was beginning to cultivate vast fruit orchards.  His advertisements mentioned the excellent area transportation for facilitating the prompt delivery of orders for stock. It is almost certain that the Woodworth Company was involved in this delivery process.


Among the largest wholesale produce concerns of Western New York after the Civil War was L.G. Loomis & Son of Victor, New York.  Woodworth’s ledger records early dealings with the Loomis firm, including some substantial purchased in 1847.  In 1882 Loomis would form a partnership with W.C. Woodworth, in the same line of business, the firm being called Loomis & Woodworth, with offices at the town of Victor.  On August 1st, 1907, Mr. Woodworth retired, and Mr. Loomis admitted his son, Leslie George, Jr., to membership in the firm, since known as L.G. Loomis & Son.

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Price: $1,500.00

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