PA Photos and Documents

These three digitized memorandum books belonged to Timothy Kirk, born circa 1786 in West Marlborough, Chester County, Pennsylvania. He married Orpha Strode (or Stroud) (1796-1875) on April 5, 1821, and they had three children: Amy Thomas (1823-1898) who married John Chandler); Benjamin Pennock (1829-1901) who died in Kennett Square; and Morris C. (1832-1903). The Kirks were Quaker.

Kirk was a wheelwright in West Marlborough township, and the three memorandum books include content from both his business and personal life. The first book, labeled House Expenses, has entries dated 1821-1827. Expenses recorded include the purchase of a variety of food items, wages for household help, stove blacking, fodder, hay, and pasturage for cow, soap, candles, rent, indigo, pewter sand, and other assorted charges. Although Kirk was listed as a wheelwright in census records, work records show that in addition to making wheels, he made bookshelves, yokes, balls for casters for chair legs, tool handles, wheelbarrows, coffins, rockers for cradles and chairs, wash boards, a washing machine, and other items. He also repaired wagons and sleighs, sharpened tools, worked on a candle stand, and recorded charges for boards, scantling, planks, and lumber. The volume includes miscellaneous notes, such as charges for schooling of William Pyle; notes naming females whom he employed; pasturage of a cow; and memoranda about financial notes.

The second volume, labeled Book of Memorandums, spans 1823-1832. Most of the book records the details of specific financial notes, listing from whom a note was received, the amount involved, and the bank on which the note was to be drawn. The remainder of the volume records a wide range of information, including births, marriages, and deaths; a lists of people who worked for the Kirk family or who boarded with them; heights and weights of children (his own and others); and mathematical formulae and measurements. Agricultural records include pasturage of a cow; measurement of a potato top; notes about bees; smoking meat; planting crops, and rental of his Dearborn wagon. Kirk kept a record of schooling for Milton Jackson, and a record of the items bought for Jackson’s “freedom suit,” suggesting that Jackson had been an apprentice (pages 2 and 43). An account of people bled (p. 35) suggests that Kirk himself (or someone in his household) was doing the bleeding; the list includes given names for some while others are recorded as “Black man” or “Black girl.” Page 45 includes a question posed to Abraham Lower (followed by his answer) regarding Quaker orthodoxy.

The third book of memorandum spans 1832-1840. Content is similar to that in volume 2, including records of financial notes, plus marriages, and deaths (with cause often listed). The death of Jacob Hendershot (noted on page 22) includes commentary on the Thomasonian medical practices of the attending practitioner summoned by Hendershot. Also found are recipes for a burn ointment, shoe blacking, and sour drops. Occurrences such as snowfalls, a meteor shower, a solar eclipse, and the arrival of locusts are recorded. Some house expenses, primarily for food, are found near the end of the volume along with cow pasturage notes. Kirk also recorded the births of his three children (on the inside of the back cover); weight of most of the family members; and statistics about a ship being built in Philadelphia.