The Bogton Ledger: 1857-1859 Highwines and Saleratus

by Mary Ducharme   (August 2021)

In 1993, Robert Hadley donated a store ledger to the Archives, with entries from 1857 to 1859. Several front and back pages are covered with newspaper clippings, the remaining pages contain customer names and store accounts.

Where the CIBC now stands was the property of Andrew Bedell who sold his store ‘lock, stock and barrel” to Edmund Kenney and George William Keddy in 1883. These two prominent business partners, and brothers-inlaw, had been renting the Scriver building (south west corner of Frontier Street) and the two stores were both known as Keddy and Kenney stores. There was also a Kenney store in Hallerton at the junction of Kenney Side Road and Quest Road. The ledger did not seem to fit any of these.

The Keddys came to own a “vast area of land east of Hemmingford” (Maynard). In that region, there was one more Keddy store, in Bogton. The customers listed lived in Bogton or nearby. Christiana (McNaughton) Keddy had written her name on the inside front cover. Also signing the ledger was John Keddy, her husband. who writes under his name “ Bogtown is my dwelling place.” John is listed in the 1861 census as a farmer and trader. He managed the Keddy property holdings with his brothers Isaac and Robert.

Christiana glued the Gleaner clippings over the pages of the ledger and this personal scrapbook had its own merits in revealing mid-19th century life. Removing axle grease from clothing and curling feathered plumes to decorate hats would interest most women of the time. She snipped an article on the frightful injuries to the body when corsets are too tight for the figure. The knitting of under drawers and high-necked under vests, and a crochet hood for a lady were all chosen as worth saving. There is an illustration of an elaborate dress likely too rich for Hemmingford women at the time, but perhaps it served as inspiration. The scrapbook section at the end of the ledger includes poetry expressing the poignancy of married love, lost youth, death and religious faith.

When the ledger was in use John was in his late 30’s. He penned a bit of ambiguous doggerel, perhaps about feeling unappreciated. John died in 1883, the same year that his son George William Keddy purchased the store from Bedell.

John Keddy is my name,
England is my nation,
Bogtown is my dwelling place
A most charming habitation.
When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten
Look in this book and you will see
When I am quite forgotten.

Digging deeper into the accounts reveals that few entries are in the names of women. The men who did the shopping appear to be motivated by pints or glasses of whisky added to the tab. John Orr was fond of “highwine”, a potent liquor produced from vats of rum during distillation. A possible excuse to the wife if she found a cache of empty pints in the hayloft was that highwine was medicinal and also ideal for cleaning firearms. Joseph Noel bought gallons of molasses, which not only served as a sweetener but also an additive to grain mash to turn out 80 proof rum. It was a commodity more lucrative than cash, though many families wished it was banned forever from existence.

Flour was purchased by the barrel, but sugar was a luxury. Tea, coffee, and tobacco were on most tabs, but seldom meat or produce. A popular commodity was saleratus, a mix of potassium and sodium bicarbonate, more familiarly known as baking soda. It was a convenient leavening agent which came on the market in 1846.

Calico by the yardage was the most popular fabric. No silk, or linen appeared in the ledger. Men’s shirting and striped blue denim are itemized. Thomas McManus bought calf skin and “soling leather” but there is no mention of the sale of shoes.

John and Christiana raised a large family, and the marriages of their children attached them to numerous Hemmingford families. The Bogton ledger, and other research materials are available for viewing at the Archives. Many thanks to Robert Hadley and Mickey Maynard, both descendants of the Keddy/ Kenney families. Their contributions to the family history lay a foundations for other historians to expand. Many thanks to Dan Mark and Myrna Paquette for pointing the way to further resources.