Alterations To The House
by George Holcomb • Transcribed by Betty McClave • Edited by Alex Brooks
Thursday, May 14, 1846: Russel Palmer’s boy dropped corn and I paid 12 cts. Andrew Clark came and bought two cows and paid $20 and agreed to see his sister Anna Moffitt paid me for the other cow 21 dol, and John Mathews is to plaster a bedroom.
Friday: I finished planting corn on said Rodgers farm this forenoon and said Palmer boy dropped corn a spell and I paid him three cts. Today at noon we came home and fetched our new two horse lumber wagon from Westalo Rodgers, he had made a new pine box and put on all the irons and he charged three dollars for painting and he charged fifty cts for grinding paints for me. We took down our railway stove and wired our sows noses and turned them and their pigs to grass.
Tuesday: I this morning took my one horse wagon and fetched Westalo Rodgers and his tools and paint mill. He works for me altering a recess larger and moving a door and making a bedroom into a buttery. Today I helped Westalo Rodgers about altering the house and Geo P. went to election and voted for no license and John F. plowed sward for potatoes on my Rodgers farm.
Wednesday: Today I ground paint and helped Westalo Rodgers about altering the bedroom into a buttery and tonight I paid said Rodgers for his two days works, I paid him the cash two dollars and tonight I took my new two horse lumber wagon and carried said Rodgers and his tools home. I sold him seven bundles of oats straw, 12 cts.
Sunday: I and all my family went to meeting at our new school house, Elder Mathew Jones preached.
Monday: Today I and John F planted over a piece of corn in the new orchard lot on the hill, one half acre rooted up by the hogs. Today Geo P. took the new two horse lumber wagon and carried his two sisters to Pittsfield, they carried their straw hats and left to be done over. This afternoon one Mr. Rockwell from Berkshire Co. came and paid me sixteen dollars for a sow and six pigs, the pigs nearly five weeks old and today William Brown came and paid me one dollar and 87 cts for two pigs. Towards night I went onto my Rodgers farm after my ox team and on the way home I met an Irishman by the name of James Macklie and bargained with him to dig a ditch in my swamp pasture where it was through stumps and roots.
Wednesday: This forenoon quite rainy. I called to Howard’s Post Office and got my Budget and paid five cts for my May Repository. This afternoon Geo P. worked a-lathing the bedroom and John F. put ashes on corn.