I've written a number of articles on local account books over the years. After all, they are some of the few surviving primary documents that, for readers today, give us a feel for life in another time. The store manuscripts list what people ordinarily bought on a daily or weekly basis, including store goods and many services — one-stop shopping. They were true general stores: foodstuffs, dry goods, wood products, labor, legal work, liquor and workaday supplies.

The earliest surviving Boothbay account book is one kept by Joseph Patten from 1753 to 1762. He owned Sawyers Island during the period Boothbay was resettled and called Townsend, between 1730 and 1764. Readers may wish to attend the historical society event at the Leach home and property on Sawyers Island, once Patten's, on September 13 (see article elsewhere in this issue). Attendees can walk in the footsteps of those who made the site a pivotal spot in Boothbay's early centuries.

Patten's years here

In 1746 Joseph Patten bought Sawyers Island, then called Ship Island, from Samuel Barter of Barters Island. Patten, born 1710, was originally from Billerica, Mass., but I believe he moved to Newbury in the early 1740s. The reasons: a son was buried in Newbury, a daughter married there, and many Newbury voyagers showed up in the account book. Though Patten might have become a resident here in Townsend soon after 1746, he's not proven to be in place until 1753, when he, a "trader," signed a petition.

Sawyers/Ship Island was an attractive site for a trader and innkeeper, catching traffic going up and down the Sheepscot. If you plunked yourself down on the most visible northwest part of the island, you were likely to become a destination. Patten did it all on the island: he ran a tavern and inn, functioned as a trader, decided minor disagreements, performed marriages, and drew up legal papers as a justice of the peace, and perhaps built a sawmill. His account book provides invaluable insight into who was here and what they were doing, often drinking a lot of rum. Though the account book spans the French and Indian War, at no time is there a gap, leading me to believe that Patten stayed on through it all. Most of the local population stayed on as well; the previous 1740s war was much more daunting.

Patten's tavern and store

Pattern had a variety of rum items for thirsty neighbors and voyagers who arrived at his wharf: flip, milk punch, toddy, egg toddy; and plain rum in drams, gills, pints, half pints, mugs, half mugs, and larger amounts. Patten often sold a night's lodging, dinners and breakfasts, usually to Massachusetts men who were here in their vessels to get all those staves, shingles, clapboards and firewood. In terms of food staples sold, Patten focused mainly on bulk goods, such as molasses, corn, sugar, coffee, salt, potatoes and beans.

Hard pounds and shillings were rare, so debts were usually paid in goods. In 1755 Samuel Barter Jr. bought his quantities of tobacco and rum with "his saw" (cutting for Patten), staves and shingles. Such trade payments often indicated who did what: shoemakers paid in shoes, big-time farmers rented the use of their oxen (1700s tractors), and laborers split out shingles from bolts of wood. Some of the goods Patten took in trade were calfskins, gunpowder, labor, butter from women, codfish, mackerel and knitting needles. Like Barter above, John Serote of Back River bought a lot of rum with bundles of shingles he split by hand. Lack of hard currency created creative solutions. Sometimes Patten had to demand adjustments for defective goods taken in payment, such as "damnified hay" or "very bad shingles."

Local families, such as Linekins, Brewers, Barters and Reeds were there often. To get an idea of the tavern pattern, in 1761 Patten recorded 63 patrons who made a total of 373 visits. A familiar pattern in all account books is geographic proximity; those who lived closest visited most. Some came only once; some, like Benjamin Curtis and Edward Morse on Hodgdons Island, came as many as 17 and 27 times. Of the 373 visits, 22 involved legal aid.

When Patten left Townsend in 1761 or 1762, I theorize he went on to Annapolis, Nova Scotia. He (if the same man) was a justice of the peace and political figure there, as his legal work might have prepared him for. We are fortunate he passed through here and that his account book somehow survived for 250 years. The old manuscript can be seen at the Leach house on September 13 at the historical society event.