Account Book, 1803-24

(York County, Pennsylvania), 1824. Oblong 12mo. 88 pp. Contemporary calf backed wall-paper covered boards; binding rubbed at edges with minor loss of paper and leather, otherwise very good. Eichelberger's account book contains a list of expenses as well as income relating to the Eichelberger farm. Entries are organized chronologically and list the item received or service performed as well as the price paid for the item or service. Eichelberger listed prices in both dollars and pounds. Typical expenses include the hiring of farm hands, food (often dried pork), county taxes, and the digging of a well. Eichelberger records far more income than expenses. He sold a number of items including wheat, apples, beef, rye, and animal fat. Eichelberger provided board to a widow by the name of Miller. Perhaps the most interesting sources of Eichelberger's income are the animals he sold. Between 1806 and 1809, Eichelberger records the sale of 86 horses, accounting for the vast majority of his income during those years. He also records the sale of a few steer, sheep, and hogs, but never in quantities as great as the horses. Several pages of the book record Eichelberger's duties as the executor of the will of his father, George Allen Eichelberger. These entries list the name of the beneficiary, the amount of the estate granted them, and the date on which the transaction took place. The final entry in the book, which is chronologically out of place and dated 1807, records Eichelberger's activities following the death of his father, such as traveling to Carlisle for the reading of the will and appraisal of the estate. Curiously, the entries in which the estate is divided among the beneficiaries are dated between 1824 and 1825--seventeen years after the initial reading of the will. This hints at the protracted probate disputes and complications involved in executing a will in the early nineteenth century. Also of note in this book is the inexplicable changes in the way Eichelberger spelled his name. In the earliest entries of the book it is spelled "Echelberger", then appears as "Eichelberger", and finally, beginning around 1810, appears as "Higleberger". While the record book mentions no place names other than Carlisle, a prosperous farm family by the name of Eichelberger resided in York County, Pennsylvania for many years in the eighteenth century. It is very likely that Jacob was a member of this Pennsylvania-German family.