NOT ALWAYS SMOOTH SAILING --
THE TROUBLEMAKER

A very odd entry appears in Nicholas Dupui's ledger; found in the account record of Benjamin Schoonmaker, it states:  "£1 --By Expenses and Trouble in the House".  

It's hard to get a sense of what this trouble may have been, as by all accounts, Benjamin Schoonmaker was a very generous man.  We see entries on his page such as these:  "To 2 Caps, 1 per Harrys Negro and 1 per Indian James," "To a pair of womans stockins," "For Rebacka Waybrant a Course Comb," and "To 7 yds. of Callicoe for Lenna Decker."

Benjamin Schoonmaker was a rather wealthy man, his ledger pages recording over 70 transactions.  As an area notable, he maintained a healthy running account balance at Dupui's general store, and was known to be a slave owner (as indicated by this entry:  "To 3 Days work by Saml Hendy & my Negro Abraham").

We know that he took long trips on horseback (he owned a "Saddle and Briddle"), just to pick up a modicum of supplies ("To Cash paid at Esopus for 1/2 a pound of Indego"), and that the man would take on certain projects -- on one day he purchased 36 pounds of nails, bought 95 boards (1x6) and secured leather from the tanner.  On the same day, he also paid out more than 12 pounds in cash to John Alsiron (likely a contractor).  If one were to guess, the lumber purchased might well have been sufficient to potentially build a small smokehouse.

All this, of course, brings us no closer to determining the nature of the "trouble" reported.  It's certainly possible that having only purchased 6 quarts of rum over the course of three years, perhaps the man just couldn't hold his liquor well, that "words" might have been exchanged at Dupui's store, and that Schoonmaker chose to compensate Dupui for his troubles on that occasion.  Again, it's just speculation.

What remains clear is that while mischief may have been afoot in the wilds of Pennsylvania, with counterfeiting, thievery, pickpocketing, real estate fraud, war profiteering and such having been reported throughout the colony, Schoonmaker clearly was not involved in such "troubles".  Contrariwise, he was an upstanding official member of the Smithfield Dutch Reformed Church (since 6 June 1746), and was married to Lisabeth Dupuy (their first child, among many, was baptised in that church on 21 June 1741).

So...  if you're looking for examples of cheats, scoundrels, miscreants and vagabonds, you won't necessarily find them within the pages of Dupui's ledger.  You will, however, find over two dozen references to legal actions taken... but that's a story for another day.