Van Rensselaer Manor Papers

Debit-Credit Ledger

This collection includes several early account books that detail a wide array of goods brought over from the Netherlands that were purchased by the colonists of Rensselaerswijck.  We can learn that  farmers Brant Peelen and Cornelis Thuenis purchased shoes, stockings, shirts, linen pants, hats, a suit of clothes, cloth, blankets, brandy, cheese, vinegar, brown medicinal beer, oil lamps, a gun and baldric, powder and lead, cordage, and grain scythes.  Arent van Curler, whose name is scrawled on the cover, was commissioned as bookkeeper and secretary of the colony in 1639.

Ledger, debit-credit account for colonists at Rensselaerswyck, 1634-1638