Jesse Green receipt book

This receipt book highlights the mercantile activities of Jesse Green of Sussex County, Delaware, between 1803 and 1830. It also includes Green’s financial accounts with his children Mary, Emmeline, William, and Jesse, Jr.

This volume includes several payments by Green to individuals and firms, some of which were located in Baltimore, Maryland. Many of these payments were made on Green’s behalf by Ignatius Peirce, who may have been his business partner or apprentice. In addition to payments for goods, the book also includes payments for wharf usage and wages related to the Sloop Liberty. Near the back of the volume, there is a list of expenses Peirce incurred during his journey to Baltimore in 1803. There is also a list of goods Peirce sent to Green aboard the Sloop Eliza in June 1803. These items included coffee, molasses, soap, china, indigo, and cigars. There are a few notations in the volume regarding Green’s financial holdings as well as debts he owed.

The receipt book also contains memoranda by Green dated 1822 to 1830 that pertain to his children’s schooling debts and their shares of his estate following his death. On the page enumerating his daughter Emmeline’s educational expenses, Green also included a newspaper clipping and note about her wedding to Henry Long of Baltimore in 1822. Green paid substantial sums to his son William, who seems to have incurred extensive debts. In a note dated November 1830, Green stated that he had given William $5785 and that this was “all I can give him of my estate and I believe more than I can give the rest of my children so that he is to have no more of my estate.”

The volume is bound with marbled paper over boards and contains 64 pages of unlined laid paper. 32 of the pages contain handwritten entries in black ink.