How Jeremiah Earned Some Money

This summary of amounts owed to Jeremiah Wiggins is in the same handwriting (and spelling) as the Charles Sloat note, but, as we shall see, Charles wasn't involved in these transactions, except maybe as the scribe of this summing-up written well after the transactions took place.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My attempted transcription:


(Click on image to enlarge)

This document was a challenge: the copy is bad, the spelling non-standard, and the writer did not start a new line for every item. But this is what I have teased out regarding what Jeremiah did or supplied to earn these amounts:

• eight days' unspecified work by Jeremiah
• work by Jeremiah and his horses for 3 days to help build a house
• boarding (i.e., feeding) Watkins and Wyett, whoever they may have been (we'll get to that below), from April 29 to June 12 of — 1835? (the document is being written in May of 1836)
• washing and mending
• hay for two horses and (almost illegible but looks like) six chickens
• one two-horse harness

All of that is reasonable enough except for the washing and mending. "Washing," I suppose, meant laundry. Now, does a tough frontiersman do laundry and mending by the week for other people? Do tough frontiersmen want their laundry done every week? Maybe my notion of tough frontiersmen is wrong. Or maybe Jeremiah subcontracted that work.

The person owing Jeremiah these amounts set off part of his debt by furnishing to Jeremiah one young pig, two bushels of corn, some pork, and some fish.

Here is the description noted on the back of the document by Solon Robinson, the court clerk:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

No. 1
Wiggins Estate

Barney's a/c.
Balance due 55.25

Filed March 28th 1839
Solon Robinson
Clk. L.P.C.

So, while the body of the document does not name the debtor, the clerk's description supplies a name: Barney.

This may have been Francis Barney, who was in Lake County by 1836 (Lake County 1834-1872 at 55) and is listed in the 1840 census. Around 1842 he married Amanda Strong (Indiana Marriage Collection). The Barney family, with three children, is listed in eastern Ross Township in the 1850 Census. One of their daughters married Austin Thompson in 1863 and raised a family of five children, all of whom went on to raise their own families in Lake and Porter Counties.[1] I have not been able to trace any other Barney family member beyond 1850 (not that I've tried very hard!).

Let's look again at the two people whom Jeremiah boarded: Watkins and Wyett. I have found two possible matches for those names:

• William Watkins, an early settler of northeast Ross Township, who appears as early as 1837 in records of Hobart merchants, and in the 1840 census
• Thomas J. Wyatt, an early settler of Liberty Township, Porter County (Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed-Blanchard) at 38, 209, 211)

But I simply don't have enough information to identify either man positively. As to why Francis Barney would have owed Jeremiah Wiggins the cost of boarding them or any member of their families, I don't have a clue.

_______________
[1] One of their sons, George, was the father of Eva Thompson.