SHOEMAKER'S LEDGER, ROSE BAY AND RIVER PORT, LUNENBURG COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA 1897 ~ 1918

This is an account book kept by a local shoemaker living in or near the communities of Cross Roads (now called Rose Bay) and Ritsey's Cove (now called River Port) Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. There are no identifying notations to tell me who the shoemaker was, so I had to research the names in the book. I found them all living in Cross Roads and Ritsey's Cove so I assume the shoemaker lived nearby. The entries I read date from 1897 to 1918. There may be some earlier or later - they are not in date order.

It's really a fascinating book as it names children too - the shoemaker noted who he made the shoes for, and their cost, putting everyone under the father's name. Sometimes he added a note as to who the father was - if it was a name shared by more than one man, he would put "xx son of yy" as the head of the house. So he might put James Jones son of Levi and then list all of the work he did for James Jones and family.

This shoemaker also sold prescription glasses and other items so it's really interesting to read. He describes shoes and boots being made, being repaired and so on. As a small example, under the name Daniel Himmelman he has the date Feb. 10th 1897 and the notation " pair boots Albert " and the cost $1.75 . So we know that Daniel's son Albert had boots made in Feb. 1897. That is so cool!

He writes up what he did and for who, line by line, then adds the total due. It seems many of the villagers kept running accounts with the Shoemaker, some for over a year before paying! When the items are paid for, he writes a large PAID in script over the entire set of transactions. But the good news is that the transactions are perfectly readable.

There are 211 pages and each page of this shoemaker's ledger is 17x41 cm. His spelling is pretty bad but it's not hard to figure what the names really are. Some villagers have many pages devoted to them! Leonard Oxner for example has a page starting in 1911 and ending 1914 with a final notation "Paid Jan 17, 1916"

I really enjoyed reading what the shoemaker did, and what he charged! In 1914 he repaired Leonard's harness for .30! In December 1911 he charged Alex Smith .10 for "putting on skates" for Arthur (the day after Christmas, I think we all know what Arthur got for Christmas that year!). Arthur must have been quite an active young lad, because he is listed several times between July 3, 1911 and Dec. 26 as having shoes patched, shoes repaired, shoes soled and heeled, shoes patched and the skates put on.

Here are just a few of the surnames I spotted in this shoemaker's book. There are more!

The original scanned ledger pages are also on file; a full page-by-page transcription has not yet been done.