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The Life Of George Holcomb – The Cheese House Chimney

May 30, 2014 By eastwickpress

Friday, November 11: Today Mr. John Smith came to build me a chimney in my cheese house. I tended mason, and took the wagon and horses to Doctor Cuyler Tanners and paid him one dol.

Saturday: I returned the mantle tree and got a shorter and smaller one

Monday: Today I went to Albany with a load of apples and a barrel of cider. I started in the night, it was dark and rainy. I went on the South Road. I called in Nassau to a temperate tavern and bated. I paid three cts for beer. Rensselaer Sheldon went with me and we called again to Brockways. We had brandy and coffee.

Tuesday: We started out of Albany at three this afternoon and came the way of Sand Lake. We got home about eleven this evening. Today Mr. John Smith returned to work masoning building my chimney in my cheese house. My hired boy Sylvester Swan tended mason.

Wednesday: I tended mason and said Smith worked at my chimney towards night I walked to Lebanon. I paid Luther Rich two cts for a handful hair for plastering. This evening I tended mason and said Smith plastered our bedroom in spots where it was off.

Thursday: I tended mason and this evening said Smith laid my hearth in my cheese house, and tonight I started for Pittsfield after brick and lime.

Friday: This morning I got to Pittsfield and I bought 450 bricks of one Mr. Morton and paid him 37 cts per hundred and on the way going over I called to Sylvester Smith and paid 25 cts for two bushels lime. I got home about eleven and I tended mason. Said Smith coated my oven this evening, and it makes out six days work said Smith did building my chimney. Four days he owed me and the other two days I paid him the cash, two dol and 50 cts and one dol I paid him for what he did evenings.

Saturday: I cleared out the cheese house where we built the chimney and I painted the foundation of my chimney and this evening I put up the stoves.

Sunday: on this evening I rode to Pittsfield and partly bargained with the drover Mr. Foot to buy my fat cattle. I agreed to drive my beef to Lebanon on Tuesday and we would try to bargain when he passed with his drove.

Tuesday: I drove my three beef cows to Lebanon and there I met Mr. Foot and bargained and sold them at 15 dol each and took my cash.

Thursday, December 8, 1831: Today I went to Richmond with the sleigh and horses visiting to brother F. Jay Wylie’s. My wife and Lucinda Morton and Eliza Wylie went with me. I paid said Wylie 21 dollars interest money on a three hundred dollar note and on the way I stopped to the Shaker village and sold a bull’s hide at six cts per pound, weight 75 pounds.  I bought in exchange a S— shoe leather at 25 cts per pound, weight 7 pounds.

Friday: I was unwell and sore eye. I stayed in the house and chopped sausage meat.

Filed Under: George Holcomb

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