Notes |
- NAUVOO RECORDS:
Nauvoo Temple Endowment Register, p 342
Sugar Creek Camp was the first winter encampment in Iowa nearest Nauvoo and is approximately six miles west of Montrose
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Improvement Era, 1939
A PIONEER'S ACCOUNT BOOK
By A. C. LAMBERT, Ph. D., Brigham Young University
TWO PAGES, LAID OPEN, OF A PIONEER'S ACCOUNT BOOK
How startled you would be to open your household account book today and read: flour, one hundred pounds, six dollars; one washtub, five dollars; one boiling pot, three dollars; shoemaking, twenty-one dollars fifty-five cents; pork, twenty-five cents a pound; butter, twenty-five cents a pound; cheese, twenty-five cents a pound; one horn brand, five dollars fifty cents; one pair flat irons, five dollars; one yoke of cattle, one hundred dollars. These would be interesting entries, indeed, and they are real entries. An account book lying open on the writer's desk contains these items.
But the date on the yellowing leaves of this book is 1861. The entries are in good handwriting, some in faded ink, and some in legible pencil. As one scans the pages of this little book the door of a one-room log cabin seems to swing open and reveal fragments of the financial transactions of a young pioneer couple just getting settled in "Rhoades Valley," Utah, during the first year of the Civil War.
From this account book, kept in a woman's handwriting, that of Adelia Lambert, wife of John Lambert, living in Rhoades Valley, Utah, in the early sixties, there come these items:
"Paid David Eubanks
2 pounds of butter 50 cts.
2 pounds of cheese 62 cts.
19 pounds of pork 25 cts. per lb.
16 pounds of flour 6 cts. per lb.
2 pounds of cheese 50 cts.
4 pounds of salt 15 cts.
"July 14th, 1861
Paid Wm. R. Green
1 sheep, 7 dollars
"April 17th, 1861
For herding and wintering a steer up to the 1st Dec., 1863, 14 dollars
One complete page of accounts, ruled up in orderly columns, contains these items:
"Received of Samuel Peterson $
1 yoke of cattle 100
1 wagon 100
1 cow 40
1 coat 16
Tools 18.50
Sole Leather 8.50
Shoe Making 21.55
Horn Brand 5.50
Pair of Flat Irons 5
1 Boiling Pot 3
------
"I have receipted this 318.05
"Received on boot between oxen
leather from Smith 8
Pork 16 lbs. 1 dollar's worth of beef 1
Received Ropes 8.50
Wagon bed lumber 7
Lead .40
1 wash tub 5
1 wash tub, 1 bucket 7
Pots from the Potters .85
Nails 5
The purchases and sales recorded through the book at irregular intervals reflect a very narrow range of food articles purchased by this pioneer household. Of the fifty-nine entries of purchases recorded on three pages of this little book, twenty entries are for flour with a total of 303 pounds. Butter is the item in twenty-seven entries that total 46 pounds. A total of 17 pounds of cheese is accounted for in ten entries. Two entries occur for a total of 7 pounds of salt. All but one of the few entries that remain and that list sale or purchase of dressed meat call for either mutton or pork. Cattle had value for power as well as for food.
The account book from which these entries are taken belonged to the writer's paternal grandfather, John Lambert, who was born at "Gargrave,"England, January 31, 1820, and who settled finally in Rhoades Valley, Summit County, Utah. The book is now in the possession of one of the daughters of this pioneer. The accounts were kept by one of his two wives, Adelia Groesbeck Lambert, whom he married in Nauvoo, February 6, 1846.
INSIDE FRONT COVER OF A PIONEER'S ACCOUNT BOOK
This little book, measuring six inches long, three and three-fourth inches wide, and less than one-half inch thick, is remarkably well preserved. Curiously enough, it was probably first owned by a Thos. Cottam whose name in large hand printing stands out boldly on the inside of the first cover in letters one-half inch high. Two sentences, each in a different handwriting, stand beneath the two different inscriptions of the name of Thos. Cottam, and they state that this book was "Bought at St. Louis, Mo., U. S., July 3rd, 1845," and that Cottam, evidently, was "Formerly from Waddington, Clitheroe, Lancashire, Old England."
A small book, ninety-two years old, most of its pages are still unmarked, and notes and records scattered through the leaves are all too brief. The picture of that dramatic past is left very dim, and parts of it can never possibly be filled in. The loss is great.
How many families of today wish that records of the past had been easier to make and to preserve! And what a tragedy that so little can be done about it. But one thing we today can do is build our records well for those who yet will come to read them. We should make records, and we should record with intelligence and discrimination. Then the records that we make must be preserved. This is our obligation to the future.
1860 United States Census
County of Salt Lake, Territory of Utah
Post Office: Great Salt Lake City
Page 243, 11th Ward
John Lambert, age 39, Bricklayer, born Englandd
Adelia Lambert, age 38, born Ohio
Martha A. Lambert, age 13, born Missouri
John C. Lambert, age 10, born Missouri
Mary A. Lambert, age 8, born Utah
Sarah A. Lambert, age 7, born Utah
Richard F. Lambert, age 5, born Utah
Jedediah G. Lambert, age 3, born Utah
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Household Record 1880 United States Census
Census Place Peoa, Summit, Utah
Household:
John LAMBERT Self M Male W 60 ENG Farmer
Adelia LAMBERT Wife M Female W 58 OH Housekeeping
Eleni A. LAMBERT Wife M Female W 42 DEN Housekeeping
John C. LAMBERT Son S Male W 30 MO At Home
Richard F. LAMBERT Son S Male W 25 UT At Home
Jedediah LAMBERT Son S Male W 22 UT At Home
Ann M. LAMBERT Dau S Female W 19 UT At Home
Joseph LAMBERT Son S Male W 23 UT At Home
Danl. LAMBERT Son S Male W 19 UT At Home
Lena LAMBERT Dau S Female W 17 UT At Home
Emma LAMBERT Dau S Female W 16 UT At Home
Elizabeth LAMBERT Dau S Female W 15 UT At Home
Mercy H. LAMBERT Dau S Female W 14 UT At Home
Cornelia LAMBERT Dau S Female W 11 UT At Home
Benj. LAMBERT Son S Male W 9 UT
Parley W. LAMBERT Son S Male W 3 UT
Emeline LAMBERT Dau S Female W 1 UT
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Source Information:
Family History Library Film 1255338
NA Film Number T9-1338
Page Number 33C
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From Adelia's history, author unknown:
"...They could have come to Utah with the pioneers of 1847, but her husband wished to get a little better fixed to start the journey westward. So he worked at his trade as a brick mason in St. Joseph, Missouri, (where their first child, Martha Adelaide, was born) and in Kansas City, Missouri, (where John Carlos was born).
"Adelia, while living in Missouri, wished to add to their income. So she made moccasins and trimmed them with fancy bead work and sold them to the Indians. [She] also made men's suits. She was an expert tailor and seamstress, doing all the sewing by hand. She made suits for her husband.
"In 1850, they started West, better equipped, perhaps, than most who crossed the plains in those days. They had gotten one yoke of black Spanish cows, one yoke of oxen, a good wagon with bows and cover with which to make the journey westward. One of the cows gave milk and Adelia would milk her each morning. She put the milk into a small covered bucket and fastened it to the back of the wagon, so every night they would have butter and buttermilk.
"Despite that, the trip was long and hard, lasting three months. Their difficulties were increased because the two children had the whooping cough the entire way, and her husband bruised his heel and a felon developed from which he suffered terribly. She drove the oxen part of the time to let him rest. Sometimes they would get a bit unruly so he would have to get out of the wagon, hop on one foot and whip them. They arrived in Salt Lake City on September 11, 1850."
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