£0:6:0 -- "By making a Coffin for Aaron."  The Pugh family, sad to say, had a thriving business.  Hugh and Peter Pugh were the area undertakers, and Death came a-knockin' often enough on the Pennsylvania frontier (as clearly evinced by this particular ledger entry:  "By making a Coffin for my Son").

Other Pugh family ledger entries point to the coffin materials being utilized: "to Boards for a coffin and nails."  Yet as no one in the Pugh family was ever recorded as having purchased even a single yard of fabric, or a suitable liner such as shalloon, one can rest assured that the coffins provided for burial were far from ornate.  The only other business-related purchase by Peter Pugh was for "1 bushel of Salt," likely utilized as an embalming method.

Generally speaking, coffins of the period came in two basic varieties: a hexagonal coffin (widest at the shoulders and tapering toward each end), and an anthropomorphic coffin (human-shaped, narrow around the head, widening out at the shoulders, and tapering toward the feet).  While we do not know exactly which types of coffins were made by this family (other than the fact that they weren't made of lead), we do know that the Pughs charged the same unit amount for each coffin made -- six shillings (and it didn't matter if the deceased was a family member or a slave... it was always the same price).

While one might think that the poorest of people were commonly buried in a shroud or winding sheet and placed directly into the ground without the benefit of a coffin, Dupui's ledger makes it clear that such was not the case; in two instances, the ledger states: "a Coffin for the Negro Wench".

Of course, in between these moments of death, the Pugh family still had to make a living.  So, what else did they do?  We find ledger entries for "shoeing a mare," "laying floors," making a "new wooden wagon," "pasturing of hoggs," "making of candles," "making a Door and Door Chooks," and "by mending of Cradel for a Scythe."  Our coffin makers managed to keep busy between the Grim Reaper's visits.