Bloom, Robert

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The Accounting Historians NotebookVolume 33Number 2 October 2010 Article 72010James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son accountbooks (1778-1805): A Variety of settlementsRobert BloomFollow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebookPart of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Archival Digital Accounting Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion inThe Accounting Historians Notebook by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact memanuel@olemiss.edu.Recommended CitationBloom, Robert (2010) "James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlements," The AccountingHistorians Notebook: Vol. 33 : No. 2 , Article 7.Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol33/iss2/730                                                                                 The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010  James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son  Account Books (1778-1805): A Variety of  Settlements Robert Bloom John Carroll University OVERVIEW The Andersons were blacksmiths in Williamsburg and Richmond, Vir-ginia during the mid-1700s to the turn of the century.   Their customers included prominent figures in government.  The account books which they kept are among the best preserved and neatest of their time, main-tained at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation  Library in Williams-burg, Virginia.  The handwriting is magnificent.  Instead of facing pages, which appears to be the more common practice at the time, the books show debits and credits from individual accounts on the same page as in the following format: Item Debit Credit                   The debit entries are preceded by the word “to”; and the credit entries, “by.”  That was customary in the 1700s in American account books.  Ac-count titles indicate the names of each customer, along with any titles they had.  British currency—pounds, shillings, and pence—was used ex-clusively in the accounts.  Unusual for accounts at this time, many seemed to be discharged by cash payment rather than barter.  However, a number of settlements are made in barter of various kinds. The appendix provides a list and brief commentary on other American account books that the author has examined in recent years.  Referring to dignitaries among their customers, the account they kept for Thomas Jefferson shows the following: (Continued on page 31) 1Bloom: James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlementsPublished by eGrove, 2010The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010                                                                                  31 No currency figures are given, and no settlement is indicated.  Apparent-ly, the Andersons performed their services free of charge for Jefferson.  SETTLEMENTS There are a number of different types of account settlements illustrated in these books.  Moreover, the settlements are usually indicated by com-ments presumably made by the Andersons below each account, an  ap-proach to reflect account settlements that appears to be unique.  However, the nature of the settlements was not unusual at the time.  Consider the following accounts:  1. The Rev. John Bracken “This account has been discharged by schooling some of the children of my father.”  2. Samuel Shearer  3. Mr. James Shields Junr (Continued from page 30) (Continued on page 32) p. 72 1780 His Excellency Thomas Jefferson   Jan. 6 To putting 6 new shoes of his own on 2 horses   Mar. 11 To 2 shoes for a horse 1795   Dr.     March 26 To pointing a plough £ s3 D     9. 12. 2½   To amount brought forward from Ledger A £ 9. 15. 2½ 1794   Dr.   To Repairing a Spindle for a fan 2s April 20, 1804 This man cannot be found by me in Rich-mond or elsewhere.”   1790 Dr. [Bal.]   Mar. 3 1..6..3 2The Accounting Historians Notebook, Vol. 33 [2010], No. 2, Art. 7https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol33/iss2/732                                                                                 The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010 “This account appears to have been received by Leroy Anderson.”  Ap-parently Leroy Anderson paid this account or used this account to settle his own account with James Anderson.  4. John Rind—Richmond “This account appeas[sic] to have been discharged by Journey work.”  5. Sydner April 20, 1804.  “I cannot find a man who will acknowledge this to be due from him and it has no Christian name affixed to it.”  6. Julius Dandridge April 20, 1804.  “This man swears the account has been paid.”  7. William Carter  Doctr “My father purchased a house of this man and I imagine his account is settled.”  8. Henry Banks—Richmond “This man produced an account against this and a balance in his favor.”  Either he had an account with Anderson as his customer or with another customer of Anderson to offset this account.  (Continued from page 31) (Continued on page 33) 1791 Dr. Oct. 13  [bal.] 151(s)..3(d) 1791 Dr. May 2  [bal.] 2..8..6 1792 Dr. July 11 s   10.. 1795 Dr. April 12  [bal.] 7..8.11½ 1795 Dr. May 23  [bal.] 4..2..1½ 3Bloom: James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlementsPublished by eGrove, 2010The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010                                                                                  33 9. William Duvall—Richmond April 20, 1804.  Richmond.  “This account was presented to Major W. Duval he stated that its amount partly discharged a bond which he held of my fathers.”  The Anderson son apparently is overseeing these ac-count settlements.  10. Mr. John Foster April 20, 1804.  “This man asserts that the amount of this account partly discharged an execution against my father in Norfolk.”  11. Nimmo “This account appears to be overbalanced.”  12. Lenox & Davidson April 20, 1804.  “These men are dead and their estates out of my reach.”  13. Joseph Prentis “For the balance of this account a bond was taken, and disposed of by Hannah Anderson.”  14. Dctr. James Curry (Continued from page 32) (Continued on page 34) 1795 Dr. May 16 22..8.5¾ 1795 Dr. Aug. 5  [bal.] 28..2.1½ 1794   Dr. Cr. June 22 By Mr. Kerr 6..9..8 8.16..-- 1793 Dr. May 23  [bal.] 2.14..-- 1799   Dr. Cr. Jan. 9  [bal.]   38.17..6 17.-9.-½ 1795   Dr. April 12  [bal.]   £77.16.5-¼ 4The Accounting Historians Notebook, Vol. 33 [2010], No. 2, Art. 7https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol33/iss2/734                                                                                 The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010 “There are £46.17..4 credits to this account and as this man was the at-tendant Physician of my fathers family in Richmond I suppose it is bal-anced entirely by his account.”  CLOSING  COMMENTS The Anderson account books are so meticulously written, prepared, and kept that they are a pleasure to study.  Most books of this nature from the 18th century are in poor condition.  What is unusual about these books is the wide variety of account settlements clearly set forth in the account books.  A selection of those settlements has been provided in this piece.  APPENDIX The following are a sample of other American historical account books that the author has examined in recent years: Anonymous.  Wastebook or Day Journal, 1796-1797.  Washington and Lee University, Lexington,  Virginia. (a merchant) J.S. Cleveland.  Account Book, 1850s.  Shanower Library, Geauga County Historical Society, Burton, Ohio. (a physician) Daniel Dayton.  Day Book, 1826-1852.  Shanower Library, Geauga County Historical Society, Burton, Ohio (a merchant) Jonathan Hale’s Book, 1807, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.  (a pioneer) David King Amish Account Records, 1893.  David Luthy’s Amish Heritage Historical Library, Alymer, Ontario. (a merchant) Lemuel Punderson.  Account Book, 1816-1825.  Shanower Library, Geauga County Historical Society, Burton, Ohio. (a merchant and public official) Samuel Squire.  Account Book, 1799-1854.  Shanower Library, Geauga Historical Soci-ety, Burton, Ohio.  (a merchant) Andrew Stuart.  Grocery Store, Accounts Receivable Ledger, 1887-1844.  Peninsula, Ohio Library, Summit County, Ohio.  (a merchant)  Most of the foregoing books represent only accounts receivable and pay-able accounts. As the books served the stewardship needs of the mer-chant for whom they were prepared, financial statements were not pre-pared from these accounts. Many of the account settlements are in terms of barter as currency was scarce and not necessarily reliable. The account books usually are structured in terms of two facing pages, one for  debits and the opposite  for  credits. Since there were no general or specialized journals, the entries are descriptive in nature, with debit entries reflecting  (Continued from page 33) (Continued on page 35) 5Bloom: James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlementsPublished by eGrove, 2010The Accounting Historians Notebook, October 2010                                                                                  35 either goods or services provided by the account book merchant to cus-tomers, settlements of his accounts payable, or balance transfers to new accounts; credit entries reflecting  settlements by customers of  accounts receivable, obligations of the account book merchant to other parties, or balance transfers to new accounts.  A “waste book” was usually kept to file invoices and other documents providing the basis for most of the en-tries in the accounts.  None of the accounts  was  closed,  but  the ending  balances in the accounts were transferred  to new accounts when the ac-counts  became full of entries.   (Continued from page 34)  The Deloitte Digital Collection, 1895-1983 Royce Kurtz and Dale L. Flesher University of Mississippi The National Library of the Accounting Profession at the University of Mississippi offers many resources for studying the history of the account-ing profession around the world.  The accountancy library holdings are the largest of any library in the world, including virtually everything pub-lished in English during the past century, and many earlier items, includ-ing some dating back to the 15th century.  The total number of volumes that Ole Miss houses in the areas of accounting, auditing, taxation, and finance is believed to be in excess of 150,000.  In addition to the books and over 1,000 accounting and finance journal titles, there are also tens of thousands of pamphlets, speeches, committee reports, photos, and courtroom documents that exist at no other library in the world.  There are also hundreds of archival collections of old business records that serve as primary resources for all kinds of accounting research.  The J. D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi is truly the internation-al center of accounting research, and many of its resources are available on the Internet to anyone within reach of a computer.  The most recent addition to the Internet-available materials is the digitization of over 36,000 pages of Deloitte-related publications.  The purpose of this article is to describe the various elements of the Deloitte Digital Collection, with particular emphasis on the research resources available.    The Deloitte Digital Collection is a collaboration between the University of Mississippi Libraries and the Deloitte Foundation.  The Collection 6The Accounting Historians Notebook, Vol. 33 [2010], No. 2, Art. 7https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_notebook/vol33/iss2/7

James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlements

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James Anderson (1740-1798) and Son account books (1778-1805): A Variety of settlements

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