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(VERMONT). David F. Cushing Accounts. Dry Goods and Groceries. 1844-1845. Journal "B". 9 x 12.5 inches.  552 pp. Full contemp. calf. Spine and cover wear, browning, few pages loosening. Legible ink. $525.00

 

     These accounts show the names of hundreds of customers in the Cambridgeport, Windham, Vermont, area. The entries are chronological and include the item purchased and the amount paid.  Typical entries are : "Elijah Davis, 1 bushel apples, .28, and Eliza Wheeler, 1 skein silk, .04". David F. Cushing, proprietor and merchant, was born in 1814 Newfane, Vermont, and died in 1899 in Cambridgeport.

     David F. Cushing was born in 1814, of Warren and Abigail (Adams) Cushing. At the age of sixteen David learned the tailor's trade in West Medway, Massachusetts; relocated in Cambridgeport, Vermont, in 1843, and for 56 years, was the merchant of the village. Cushing was Postmaster of Cambridgeport, 1845-1853 and 1857-1861, and Deacon of the Congregational Church of Cambridgeport for 30 years from 1868 until his death in 1899. he had about nine children.

     The Genealogy of the Cushing Family by Lemuel Cusging (1877) gives this account:  Deacon Cushing was a landmark of the olden time and a connecting link with the distant past. Two years before his death he gave the following interesting account of his experiences in early days at Cambridgeport:

     "I had to go to Boston to get my stock. The list comprised almost everything from a barrel of flour to a needle. Transportation was not in those days the easy matter it is to-day. It meant a seven-day ride in the old fashioned stage coach to get to the city and back. And the cost was quite an item in the account. We paid $10 for the inconvenience we suffered, and our freight cost $1 a hundred, and it took the teams fourteen days to get from here to Boston and back. With all this we did not grumble. It was the best we could do and we made the most of it. From 1843 I went over the road regularly in the stage until 1857.

     "From then until 1877 when I gave up buying from the principals and began to buy from drummers, I used the railroads. I have been in this old building since I began business here 54 years ago, and it has a history extending far back from there. The old white building with its green painted piazza posts and shutters is one of the landmarks of Windham county, and is near the line of three towns, Rockingham, Grafton and Athens, and draws custom from all around.

     "There has been quite a change in prices since I have been in business. During the war prices took a figure that would stagger a man in these days. Flour sold at $20 a barrel, pork at $50 a barrel. Brown sugar of the common cooking kind was worth 28 cents a pound, and the granulated which is so common today cost the customer 32 cents for every pound bought. I have always believed that a man will take better care of his own business than anyone else, and for that reason I have been behind the counter nearly every day since I started the business. In the winter of 1896-7 I was obliged to remain away from a month or more, and this is the only long period that I have not been here to meet customers myself."