Robert Townsend Account Books

Robert Townsend Account Books Transcription Project

For the past four years, the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection has given serious, dedicated attention to one of its important collections, the Townsend Family Papers. Comprised of numerous manuscript letters, deeds, and the voluminous business records of this prosperous Oyster Bay, N.Y. merchant family, it’s the latter material, specifically the business records of son Robert Townsend, that are best known to researchers of the famed Culper Spy Ring, George Washington’s professional, secret intelligence gathering operation in New York during the British Occupation in the American Revolutionary War. Through diligent digitizing, cataloging, transcribing and useful tools, we have made this fascinating and important information accessible and, it is our hope, more readily understandable and usable to everyone. The reader will not only find innumerable names, products, prices and other glimpses into 18th century life just before, during, and immediately after the Revolution, but the painstaking research and explanatory guidance of arcane accounting & bookkeeping methodology, colonial currencies conversions, and much more.

About the Project
Introduction to the Robert Townsend Account Books

Robert Townsend Account Books

Waste Book – May 12, 1772 – June 25, 1772
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Book 1 – April 1, 1773 – November 15, 1779
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Book 2 – November 23, 1779 – March 29,1781
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Book 3  – May 3, 1781 – May 9, 1782
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Book 4 – May 21, 1783 – August 8, 1783
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Book 5 – May 18, 1781 – August 1, 1783
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Book 6 – Circa 1781 – June 1, 1785
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Complete compilation of Robert Townsend account books, 1773-1785, as of February 3, 2017