A Mill Saw for George Earle

This receipt dated April 13, 1846 was among some loose papers stored in a merchant's daybook from the 1840s belonging to the Hobart Historical Society. It shows "Mr. Matthews" making some purchases in a Chicago store: a mill saw and other building hardware (nails and a hammer, screws, door handles, sashes, a can of putty, and rectangles of glass).


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Notes on the back of the receipt bring George Earle into it.



The last line gives an amount "due P.G.M." I believe that is the Mr. Matthews of the receipt — Peter G. Matthews, who shows up now and then in the daybook's entries. One entry records his coming to board with the keeper of the daybook in February 1846. Here, in an entry from May 16, 1846, Peter is being reimbursed because he spent some of his own money on purchases for someone else in Chicago:



In another entry on the right-hand page, P.G. Matthews buys a pair of boots for $2.00.

So this person was in the Hobart area, it seems, and was involved somehow in the building of George Earle's saw mill at Hobart; but I cannot identify him in any local census, or any other official record anywhere. An inscription on the flyleaf of another daybook (which I haven't even begun indexing) indicates that he came from Canada.



Adding that information to the search on Ancestry.com doesn't help me. Peter G. Matthews remains a mystery.