Daybook: Almy & Brown's Account with Spinning Mills, 1793-1804 Digital

Expenses related to the spinning mill at Pawtucket, including purchase of cotton from Georgia and Cayenne, French Guiana, hardware, equipment, and lumber. In June 1795, the company paid Pliny Earle & Brothers for two sets of machine cards. Also contains an entry for cash paid to Providence slave trader and merchant Cyprian Sterry for a bell in November 1793. Other entries show costs of freighting cotton yarn to Boston, and transactions with merchants who sold Almy & Brown’s goods, including Joseph Townsend, James Morrell, and Rebecca Dean; the firm paid cash to Dean for her bills of freight, advertising, and commission on sale of cotton yarn in September 1796.

Additionally there are payments to mill workers, tradesmen, and day laborers. A February 1794 entry lists wages for African American man, John Bucklin, at Pawtucket. The volume contains a number of entries compensating parents for mill labor by their children, among them tanner Caleb Greene (August 1795), Benjamin Earle (June 1796), and Rebecca Cole (August 1796).