Looking For A Colt To Match His Own
• Transcribed by Betty McClave • Edited by Alex Brooks
Tuesday June 11, 1844: This morning I and my son Geo P. starts for the north part of the county. We were to look for a match colt for our coming three year old bay horse colt and we drove said colt in our two wheel carriage and on the way I stopped to Howard’s post office and paid up which was ten cents for May and June Repository and got my Troy Weekly Budget papers. I carried a bundle for Howard to Cranston’s post office and another bundle to Berlin post office and we passed on to Petersburgh to what was called Worthington’s old stand to Doctor Moses, and I paid 12 cts for grass bating for my horse and we a drink of sweet wine and at a shop near by we had two hind shoes set. I paid 50 cts and then we went on to Hoosic Falls to Mr. David Barnhart’s and stayed tonight. We got there about the sun half an hour high.
Wednesday: This morning after breakfast we left Mr. Barnhart’s and called to Mr. John Covey’s, he told us of a colt that was an exact matched span to our colt, but it was in Sandgate in Vermont pasture to his brother’s and we did not go to see said colt. We passed on to Pittstown to the Village of Raymertown to cousin Ira Humphrey’s, fifteen miles from Hoosic Falls, and there we took dinner.
Thursday: Today we came on from Pittstown and Raymertown village, there we left the macadamise road and crossed on to Pittstown turnpike road leading to Troy, and we came on to Millville in the town of Brunswick and left the turnpike and crossed over to Mr. James Bush’s in the same town near Wynantskill Village in Greenbush and there we took dinner with said Bush and bated and stayed three hours, and from there we passed through Wynantskill on through west Sand Lake Village, sometimes called Uline Village. We passed on to the Van Rensselaer road at what once was called Turtlott’s Corners, and came on to Morgan Harris’ tavern and I got a glass of beer. While we were there we went to look at a colt of one Mr. Clark the blacksmith, but we did not bargain for the colt for his price was too high. It was one hundred and ten dollars. From there we came home this evening and got home at eleven o’clock tonight.
Saturday: I went over to Mr. Russel Palmer’s with a load grass and hay for said unruly bull. Today we planted potatoes.