Van Rensselaer Manor Papers

Blacksmith's Account

Accounts contain an abundance of details about the routine activities of everyday life in seventeenth century America.  This account details the cost of casting cowbells and shoeing horses along with other work performed by a blacksmith for Jeremias van Rensselaer. Here we learn not only that cows were wearing bells, but that these bells were cast and sold in Rensselaerswijck for a certain price. 

Remnant of an account for work performed by a blacksmith, June 1674