Indian Commissioners' Account Book, 1784-1785, This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER LIBRARY: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education., A handwritten ledger (labeled Miscellaneous - 1784 on the cover) concerning the trade goods handed over to Indians at Fort Stanwix and other posts during the period 1784-1785 in return for lands in Pennsylvania. The pages of this volume are not themselves numbered, but numbers have been assigned for identification purposes to all pages except the covers. There appear originally to have been 92 pages, and 70 of these pages (the majority unwritten upon) remain intact. The 20 written pages in the volume include an inventory of the goods and articles delivered to the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix by Griffith Evans in October 1784; and an inventory of articles delivered to the Wyandot and Delaware Indian nations at Fort McIntosh by Evans in January 1785. Included also are financial accounts of Samuel John Atlee, William Maclay and Francis Johnston, who were Indian Commissioners for Pennsylvania; Griffith Evans, Secretary to the Indian Commissioners; and one James O'Hara, who was involved in the delivery of Indian goods. The Miscellaneous - 1784 label pasted on the front cover of the volume is identical, including the handwriting, to the style of other labels on certain volumes in the Pennsylvania State Archives' Record Group 28, Records of the Treasury Department. The evidence indicates that this account book was once among the records in the State Treasurer's office but later, for reasons unknown, passed out of State custody. Thus, it was presented to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1970 by the Historical Society of York County. The 20 written pages in this volume are pages [7-11], [15-16], [18], [39-42] and [46-53], while the pages of which only the stubs remain are pages [19-38] and [43-44]. On page [18] is the statement, Here follows a State of the Cash Accounts, apparently referring originally to the immediately following pages. Of the stubs, only four bear writing: [19], [21], [23] and [28] and two of these show abbreviations that seem to correspond with months of the year. Disclaimer: The Pennsylvania State Archives provides digital access to a wide variety of historical documents, some of which may be considered offensive by current standards. The Archives does not endorse views expressed in these historical collections, but presents these collections to aid in scholarly research.
