[1830–1831 Manuscript Daybook kept by U. Cashman & Co., Merchant and Agent for the Lackawanna Lumber Mill in Luzerne (now Lackawanna) County, Pennsylvania].

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Manuscript daybook of U. Cashman & Co., general merchant and agent for the Lackawanna Lumber Mill. The mill was located on a tributary of the Lackawanna River in Blakely Borough, Luzerne (now Lackawanna) County, Pennsylvania.

The daybook notes sales of lumber and boards, numerous entries for piloting and rafting of goods via the river, and the labor of employees (sawing, hewing, rafting) including records of their debts and credits and when they began employment. Named sawyers, raftsmen, and lumber employees of the Lackawanna Mill include Peres Randall, Luke Brownson, Wm. McDaniels, P.A. Dolph, Charles Harris, F.D. Burlingame, Levi Silvius, Norman and Orin Stephens and others.

Sample manuscript entries refer to: “2 days work on dam”; “Expenses to go for Brick to repair the mill”; “whiskey for raftmen”; “3 thousand feet…boards…76 ft. Timber for head blocks”; “Pannell Boards”; “Siding”; “2¼ days rafting”; “expenses down the River”; and “By fixing x [cross] cut saw”; “for 16¼ lb. tallow for Mill Grease”; and “There are 2 to 4/...feet good boards lying near Col. Vaughn’s belonging to U. C. & Co.” The Lackawanna Mill entries show them as both debtors and creditors (for boards, siding, “for drawing lumber ‘round falls” etc.) suggesting that U. Cashman & Co. were acting as a middlemen for them.

Examples of goods bought or sold include drawing knives, lamps, scales and weights, plenty of whiskey, iron workings, cake soup, textiles, and so on. Place names mentioned include Carbodale, Dundaff, Razorville, Centreville, Pittston and Wilkes-Barre, among others.

In the “History of Blakely Township” within History of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming Counties… (1880) it is said “the early settlers were engaged in ... lumbering and running lumber in small rafts down the Lackawanna and into the Susquehanna River. They were a rough and reckless class of men and but few of them remained as permanent residents.”

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