Military Use of Rifles in the Revolutionary War

[spgordon]

Sigh.

Your claim that "Moravians didn't open up pay schools to outsiders until almost 30 years later" is either off-topic (if you mean to stress "pay", which wasn't the issue) or simply and completely mistaken. You are, I suspect, thinking of one particular Moravian educational institution. But many Moravian communities had day schools that non Moravians could attend. The school in Lancaster, begun in the 1740s, had many non Moravian students, including Mennonites, in the 1750s and after.

[Bob Smalser]

Your claim that "Moravians didn't open up pay schools to outsiders until almost 30 years later" is either off-topic (if you mean to stress "pay", which wasn't the issue) or simply and completely mistaken. You are, I suspect, thinking of one particular Moravian educational institution. But many Moravian communities had day schools that non Moravians could attend. The school in Lancaster, begun in the 1740s, had many non Moravian students, including Mennonites, in the 1750s and after.

Context:  Northampton School.  

You're right, of course.  As you point out the limitations of some readers to follow context, I should probably amend it to read, "The Northampton County Moravians didn't open up "pay schools" to outsider until almost 30 years later.

And those are Moravian words, not mine:

http://www.moravianhistoricalsociety.org/education/nazWalkTour-3.php

In 1759 the school for Moravian boys needed a larger home, and it was decided to move the school from Bethlehem to the Manor House in Nazareth. It was a boarding school, and the boys and their teachers both lived and studied together. By 1783 the school became a "pay school," open to the sons of non-Moravians as well as Moravians for a fee. Nazareth Hall continued at this location until the school was closed in 1929.

Something like this:

  "Moravians immigrated to Northampton County in 1740 and 1741 in groups sufficiently large they would have required some initial help to successfully overwinter on the frontier.  They still considered themselves part of the Lutheran denomination, and German Protestant churches generally cooperated well with each other in frontier communities, the different denominations even sharing buildings.  Moravians were evangelicals who later opened their schools to non-Moravian children on a cash tuition basis, and their boarding school at Nazareth would later become well known for that practice.  Peter’s father by 1740 had log buildings up and a small crop in, and his land was near the route from Philadelphia to the Moravian holdings, so a connection was likely.  At Christian Springs Peter would have also come in contact with gunmaker Christian Oerter (1747-1777), who in 1766 took over as master there.  Working strongly against the possibility of non-Moravian boys studying under Albrecht or Oerter in the late 1750’s - early 1760's  is that Moravian activities were exceptionally well-documented, yet no such apprenticeship records exist.  Moravian “pay schools” in the Northampton area open to outsiders didn’t come into being until over two decades later, and during the period Peter was learning a trade, Moravian society there remained relatively closed.  Further, the Moravians also needed cash more than labor, and in the late 1750’s cash was scarce among subsistence farmers like the Newhards (Moravian Historical Society, Kettenburg)."

[spgordon]

Apologies for not realizing that your assertion ("Moravians didn't open up pay schools to outsiders until almost 30 years later") was only about Northampton County Moravians. The "context" that shaped my clarification was the several previous mis-statements of fact you've offered in this thread (the 12,000 stands of arms "turning over every few months" in Allentown, the General Economy in Bethlehem "failing" economically), so I read the recent statement as yet another such instance.

Now, about Northampton County. Nobody disputes what you say about the Bethlehem school moving to Nazareth, etc.; the girls school, still in Bethlehem, opened itself to non-Moravian girls in 1785. But there were other Moravian schools in Northampton County besides the particular instance you seem to think exhausts the subject. Are you aware of these other Moravian schools in Northampton County in the 1750s and 1760s?

I'll add, too, that the statement of mine that you felt the need to "correct" for some reason (that "the Moravians accepted many non-Moravians into their schools but not...into their apprentice systems") was mentioned to support your point that Newhard probably did not apprentice under Albrecht. I did not suggest that Newhard might have gone to a Moravian school.

[Bob Smalser]

By the early 1760s, it seems like there could have been varied sites of significant gun production in the area.

You comments about other Moravian schools are noted, thanks.  But the issues would be their location and did they charge tuition?

And what other significant gun production in the area circa 1760?  Hess, Moll, Rupp et al were all later.  

[spgordon]

But what other significant gun production in the area circa 1760?  Hess, Moll, Rupp et al were all later. 

I thought you had said that Moll was at work in Allentown shortly after 1763? So I was just noting that, since the Christian's Spring gunshop was opened in 1762 and its inventories suggest a significant amount of product, "by the early 1760s, it seems like there could have been varied sites of significant gun production in the area": Moll in Allentown and Albrecht and others in Christian's Spring. About Moll I only know what I've read in your work some time ago. My point was that there's no reason to minimize the Moravians' production at this moment in order to emphasize the significance of Moll's work. We don't really know any figures about "demand," which is the only thing that could lead one to believe that the area couldn't sustain or didn't need the amount of guns these two producers may have been turning out....

Or am I misunderstanding something?

Scott

[spgordon]

You comments about other Moravian schools are noted, thanks.  But the issues would be their location and did they charge tuition?

The issues for your study may be their location and whether they charged tuition. But the more general issue that I responded to was whether it is accurate to state that there were no opportunities for non-Moravians to attend a Moravian school until 1783 (either generally or even in Northampton County). Non-Moravians could and did--and in Northampton County. Since forum readers will rely on information posted here for their own research, it's important that it be as reliable as possible (even if, for your study of Moll & Newhard, it doesn't matter that there were other Moravian schools in Northampton county because they were open at the wrong time, or too far away from where we know Newhard was, etc.).

Scott

[Bob Smalser]

Roughly 30 rifles a year (from the stock blank inventories) between 1762 and 1764 is a significant amount of product?  With "English" barrel and lock provided, it took one man two weeks to build a rifle.

It sounds like the Moravian "for-profit" enterprise and Moll's operation in Northampton Town began around the same time and on a similar scale....beginning slowly and growing in workers and output as the demand increased as a result of nearby incidents.  Notably the October 1763 Whitehall-Allen massacre and the July 1764 massacre of an entire schoolroom in Franklin County.

And my point about Moravian school location and tuition doesn't just apply to the Molls and Newhards.  The area had only been settled since around 1740.  By 1760 alll the locals surrounding the Moravian communities were still subsistance farmers with very little hard cash on hand to pay for schooling.  And except for the missionary schools among the Delawares, all the Moravian schools I'm aware of were established to generate cash.  If you know of others, I'm interested.

[spgordon]

None of these other small Moravian schools charged tuition. I'm not talking about schools among the Delaware. None of these schools were large, some didn't last long, but they existed and they taught children.

They may not have been in the area, or have been open at the time period, that is relevant for Moll and Newhard. But they existed in several locations in Northampton County where there were Moravian settlements (or even itinerant ministers) as well as in nearby counties that may have been closer to a resident in Northampton County than other parts of that county.

So, although the difference doesn't matter for your study, it misrepresents the actual situation to state that non-Moravians could not study in Moravian schools until 1783 when the Nazareth academy opened its doors to non-Moravians boys who had families able and willing to pay.

[mkeen]

Roughly 30 rifles a year (from the stock blank inventories) between 1762 and 1764 is a significant amount of product?  

 By 1760 alll the locals surrounding the Moravian communities were still subsistance farmers with very little hard cash on hand to pay for schooling. 

The two inventories with the number of gunstocks on hand does not relate to production. There is no way you can infer the number of guns produced. They could have produced a thousand guns or no guns in the intervening two years. There is no way to tell unless production records are available. It only tells us how many gunstocks were available at that particular point in  time.

It is also extremely difficult to ascertain if the farming is subsistence or not. If they are subsistence farmers it would mean they could only produce the food required for their immediate family and have absolutely none for sale. In order to make a claim of subsistence farming the local area and individuals must be studied in detail. You must look at land, estate and tax records and combine them together to try to ascertain the wealth of the area and individuals. Just because someone lives in a rundown log cabin is no indication of their wealth. The farmer that builds the large stone farmhouse might go bankrupt. No difference between then and now. One the best economic studies of southeastern Pennsylvania during the colonial period is  James T. Lemon's "The Best Poor Man's Country." Immigrants to Pennsylvania could arrive basically penniless and within ten or twenty years have a substantial fortune.

Mart Keen

[Bob Smalser]

...In order to make a claim of subsistence farming the local area and individuals must be studied in detail. You must look at land, estate and tax records and combine them together to try to ascertain the wealth of the area and individuals.

....Immigrants to Pennsylvania could arrive basically penniless and within ten or twenty years have a substantial fortune.

Actually, I've done exactly that for the 2000 or so members of the extended Neuhart family stemming from six, 1737 German/Alsatian immigrants, with two more families immigrating in 1754 and 1766.  Plus a few Molls immigrating in 1731, the Kuntz's immigrating in 1738, and a few Rupps immigrating in 1750.

And everything you say is true....only for the Lehigh Valley area after, not before, the Revolutionary War.  Lemon’s book deals with SE Pennsylvania that had been settled since the 1680’s…I’m writing about NE Pennsylvania that wasn’t acquired from the Lenape until 1737.  By the period in question in the early 1760's...after only 20 or so years of settlement...farmers were still pulling stumps.  All those 2 and 300-acre tracts that would eventually make them wealthy had only around 50 acres cleared and in cultivation by then.  For example, gunmaker Peter Newhard's father Michael was one of the wealthiest landowners in Whitehall Tp when he died in 1793, but in 1768 had only 70 acres out of 200 cleared and in cultivation with five grown sons assisting.

Further, while the limestone bottomlands of the Lehigh Valley had lovely loam, forest soils require a decade or more of green manuring via crop rotation before they achieve full productivity.  Establishing prosperous farms took decades, not years…it can take several days to pull a 200-year-old walnut tree stump using horses, and weeks to pile and burn them, and some ideal bottomland tracts were abandoned solely because the timber was too heavy.  For example Michael’s cousin Frederick (my 5th Great Grandfather) also eventually became one of the wealthiest men in the township, but he lost almost 10 years of progress when he exchanged 200-acre parcels in 1746 to acquire land easier to clear.  In 1765 on his new parcel, he was taxed for 305 acres, 8 horses, 7 cattle and 8 sheep, yet he still only had 85 acres under cultivation and had four grown sons working the property.

The Rupps were a rare exception.  Married to the Alsatian Von Peterholz family, George Rupp arrived in 1750 already wealthy.  His sons Herman and Johannes (John I) Rupp became gunmakers because they wanted to, not because they had to.  Their mother was the daughter of a count.

[mkeen]

Fifty acres of cleared land is not subsistence farming. With fifty acres of cleared land you have a lot of surplus grain for sale. Those amounts of cleared land are common no matter where you are in southeastern PA during the colonial period. Most of the farms where not totally cleared of timber until about the 1820's. The Germans would retain large amounts of land so it could be subdivided for their children. The Germans did not believe in primogeniture like the English. All children would receive an equal share of the estate. Farmers during the colonial period could make a nice living on 50 acres of cleared land and definitely increase their wealth. Even today the average size of an Amish farm in southeastern PA is about 30 to 60 acres. It's difficult to farm any more than that with horses or mules for one family.

Mart Keen

[TPH]

Fifty acres of cleared land is not subsistence farming. With fifty acres of cleared land you have a lot of surplus grain for sale.
Mart Keen

Mart, I take it you are not a farmer? Especially one who uses the methods of farming and the equipment available in the mid-18th Century? And we are not isolated from others like they were then, even among the Amish community who do use horses but have the advantage of well settled areas with good roads and markets to choose from.

On 50 acres you have to graze at least one or two head of cattle and at least one good strong horse (you need the horse for plowing and transportation) maybe raise a hog or two, build a house and a barn (small yes, but you still need them) as well as grow crops for food for you and your family, not just grain. You'll also need a stand of timber in a remote area for future use, there's no lumber yard to get wood from. 50 acres today, especially with hybrid seed and power equipment allows a larger output than the 18th Century farmer ever dreamed of. Especially if you can do without livestock and buy your meat, milk and butter at the grocery store.

[Bob Smalser]

With fifty acres of cleared land you have a lot of surplus grain for sale.

That sounds nice, except that if it was a good year for cereal rye on your farm, it was a good year on everyone else’s farm, too, making the price of surplus often not worth the trip to market.  Grain and other produce is bulky, wagons were expensive, and 70 miles to the nearest cash market in competition with older, much more productive farms much closer to the market was a two-week event over unimproved roads.

Plus, in Frederick Neuhart’s example,  85 cultivated acres of slowly-progressing fertility minus 4-6 acres per draft horse, 3-4 acres per cow, 2 acres per sheep times 8 horses, 7 cattle and 8 sheep equals 69 acres minimum just to support your livestock.  And Frederick had one of the more prosperous farms then.  His oldest son failed entirely at farming between 1762 and 1764 on 250 acres in Mt Bethel Tp, and scraped by making shoes and hunting and trapping until he had the opportunity to join the Continental Army in 1776.

As I said, in the early 1760’s in the Lehigh Valley there wasn’t a lot of cash on hand to support luxuries like school tuition, new rifles, etc, et al.

[spgordon]

Was it large a "cash" economy in this area at this time? I honestly don't know, but much of what I've read about other communities, such as described in Diane Wenger's excellent A Country Storekeeper in Pennsylvania: Creating Economic Networks in Early America, 1790–1807 (2009), point out that shopkeepers would often accept goods in lieu of cash and would keep extensive credit/debit logs that could stretch for years with little cash ever being exchanged. (I realize 1790-1807 is a later period, Bob, than you explicitly mentioned. But I am asking whether we know much about whether there was a cash economy in the pre-Revolutionary period you did mention.) What Wenger notes about Schafferstown was certainly true as well in Bethlehem, where the "stranger's store" carried on a thriving trade with surrounding communities.

We published in 2006 at Lehigh University Press an excellent book, Backcountry Crucibles: The Lehigh Valley from Settlement to Steel, but I cannot recall how much it addresses the question of a "cash economy" in the Lehigh Valley before the Revolution.

Has anything been written that offers evidence about what gunsmiths would take in exchange for their products? That would be interesting.

Scott

[mkeen]

Yes, I do farm and have written on agricultural history. If they are subsistence farming in the Lehigh Valley, how can a farmer afford 8 horses, 7 cattle and 8 sheep? The period of subsistence farming in southeastern PA lasts only about 2 to 3 years for a new settler on virgin soil. You must also remember that initially they got tremendous yields out of the newly cleared land. The soil was much more fertile and large supplies of minerals were returned to the top soil by the burning of the trees and brush. About the time of the Revolutionary War the soils are being depleted, but the use of gypsum returns to the soils to a more productive level. The early settlers also got around a great deal. From Lancaster they routinely went to Philadelphia and New Castle, Delaware to sell grain and this is in the 1720's. They would get to Philly in 3 days and more often then I ever do. Pennsylvania had large surpluses of wheat during the colonial period and much was shipped to Europe at high prices. This may be hard to believe but bread was even shipped to the West Indies from Pennsylvania. That must have been hard bread!

Mart Keen

[Bob Smalser]

... You must also remember that initially they got tremendous yields out of the newly cleared land. The soil was much more fertile...

I suggest you run that one by a soil scientist.  Or even your county agent.

... (I realize 1790-1807 is a later period, Bob, than you explicitly mentioned. But I am asking whether we know much about whether there was a cash economy in the pre-Revolutionary period you did mention.)

I'm a rural, West-coast forester.  I grow things in an area that was primeval forest only 75 years ago, bought much of my land from the original homesteaders, and in clearing many acres for mixed use, including farming, I can assure you that six inches inside the weathered exterior, all those ancient stumps are still just as sound as they were the day the trees were felled in 1936.  Fortunately I no longer have to use picks, shovels, crowbars and horses.  I can also assure you that freshly-cleared forest soils are years and decades away from the calendar photos of fertile, Amish farms that come to mind when pondering Pennsylvania, limestone-based alluvial  bottomlands notwithstanding.



Creating even a break-even farm from primeval forest is more akin to the movement of a caterpillar than a greyhound.  Starting with rude huts, a few cultivated acres, and years of porridge and venison, the more land you cleared, the more livestock you could support.  With growing sons and more livestock still, you could progress at a greater pace….but as I demonstrated earlier, each additional mouth to feed, animal or human, required considerable tillable acreage.  Further, children required things that couldn’t be made on the farm or easily bartered for, hence the desirability of a cash-generating trade to supplement the early but small farm surpluses of questionable value.

How long did it take for Lehigh Valley farms established in 1740 to generate cash above and beyond the subsistence level?  In my judgment it was the war with its inflated demand and prices.  But certainly not after only 20 years or land clearing in 1760.

[mkeen]

Bob:

Is the land you live on in Washington State, covered with conifers or deciduous trees? That makes a big difference on initial soil fertility. I know this is off the subject of rifles but my statement was questioned.

Mart Keen

[spgordon]

children required things that couldn’t be made on the farm or easily bartered for, hence the desirability of a cash-generating trade to supplement the early but small farm surpluses of questionable value.

How long did it take for Lehigh Valley farms established in 1740 to generate cash above and beyond the subsistence level?  In my judgment it was the war with its inflated demand and prices.  But certainly not after only 20 years or land clearing in 1760.

It should be possible to discover, through research, whether the Lehigh Valley had a cash economy (i.e., how much trade was conducted in cash, whether consumers needed cash to procure what they needed beyond what they could produce): there are day books, ledgers, correspondence, etc., that survive on which to base a study that would yield information about this. Or the pre-Revolutionary LV could be compared to other communities that have been studied--as Bob says, at a similar stage of development with similar natural resources to make the comparison legitimate. Perhaps such studies have already been done (the one that comes to mind, about another community, I've already mentioned).

Anybody read the following?: Michael Kennedy, "The Wheels of Commerce: Market Networks in the Lehigh and Musonetcong Valleys, 1735-1800," in Backcountry Crucibles: The Lehigh Valley from Settlement to Steel (Lehigh University Press, 2006): 208-224.

Without such a study, we are just telling stories. Perhaps children required things that couldn't be bartered for; perhaps barter did the trick. Any evidence for one or the other? Do we know what rifle makers accepted as payment for their product? If cash was short (as it always was), would they accept alternate means of payment?

Nor should different issues be confused (as with the schooling thread). One issue is whether LV farms generated surplus cash (Bob proposes, above, that they did not until at least 1760). Another issue is whether cash was needed (i.e., whether there was a "cash economy") or whether most things could be obtained through other means.

[Bob Smalser]

Is the land you live on in Washington State, covered with conifers or deciduous trees?

Deciduous trees in the alluvial, sandy-loam bottomlands.  Just like in Pennsylvania, only predominately Bigleaf Maple with Pacific Crabapple, Vine Maple, Black Cottonwood, Red Alder, Cascara, etc.  The gotcha that makes our uplands conifer heaven is bone-dry summers beyond the capacity of deciduous trees not near a watercourse to tolerate, not soil conditions.  Red and Yellow Cedar and Western Hemlock can tolerate the winter wet feet of bottomlands, but require firmer soils to thrive.  All three species have shallow roots adapted to hardpan glacial till, lacking the taproot of Doug Fir and the like.  A 15-ton tree, 180 feet tall only becomes a windthrow in soft soils.  A nurse tree or peat producer.

While a commonly-repeated belief, the myth of fertile, virgin forest soils is exactly that.  Even the limestone-based, alluvial bottomlands where the walnut trees thrived.  They were certainly more fertile that the thin, rocky soils on the shale slopes and plateaus of the Blue Hills/Kittattiny Ridge, but like all forest soils they were way too acidic and too fungus-laden, with either too much or too little humus to support optimum yields of cereal grains requiring more neutral and well-drained soils of uniform texture.  As you know, most of those cereal grains had their origins on the grasslands of SE Asia Minor and semi-arid steppes of Western Asia and North Africa, and wouldn’t thrive unassisted on American soils until the tall grass prairie lands of the Midwest opened for settlement.  Newly-cleared forest soils require massive applications of ground dolomitic limestone the pioneers didn’t have, and in the absence of that wood ashes and years of sunlight and crop rotation with the turning under and/or burning of residue and green manure to approach the level of tilth, a more neutral pH, and low-fungus environment native grasslands both here and in Asia possessed on Day One.

Pennsylvania Indians knew exactly what they were doing applying controlled burns to forest understories to increase productivity of forage and browse for game animals, and we do the same today.  But it’s a mistake to think the few ashes produced change centuries of high-acid, fungus-laden leaf mold into the semi-arid grassland conditions native to cereal grains.

[DaveM]

These posts are somewhat off "rifle" topic, but the question of how goods were paid for is relevent to gun purchases.  Did the colonial Pennsylvania Germans barter?  From what I have read, that was the primary basis of the frontier economy.  Who would have cash?  Of course some circulated, but probably not as much as many believe.  They surely bartered.  And farmers would not trade grain with other farmers, for crops of equal value, they would travel to the towns and trade townfolk for goods that they needed such as hardware, clothing and guns and other merchandise.  That's why towns such as colonial Reading set up huge markets in their main streets, to give a place for the farmers to set up.  Market days were big events, and these trading days were so popular that large structures were built to house them in Reading prior to the Revolution.  People traveled fairly significant distances to make these market days.  Therefore obviously rural folk had "extra" goods for the demand to be in place for the "marketplace".

Even townsfolk bartered with each other.  For example, stone masons and carpenters helped others build, and traded services for goods and other services.  That same exchange occurred between other various trades.  People that had acquired some means held mortgages for others, even for properties that they sold  (to earn money on "credit").  Incidentally, based on court records, PA Germans took each other to court OFTEN especially for debts due.  The British, who generally ran the court system, found these frequent lawsuits to be a curious aspect of the PA Germans.  Probably through trading, someone like Moll would have learned of a concentrated demand for guns (and hence want to move to the demand).  I would suggest that any narrative or book about this period relevent to exchange of goods and services (especially that tries to establish any assumed commerical operations on this exchange) should include some due diligent research on the barter culture of the day.  After all, even as late as the whiskey rebellion in 1794, that rebellion was caused by frontier people that refused to pay taxes on bartered whiskey because they did not have cash. 

[Karl Kunkel]

I realize it's a later time period and a little farther west, but didn't Leonard Reedy's ledgers reflect bartering,and payment of service with goods?  Even simple lock repairs were sometimes repaid over a period of years.

[Bob Smalser]

In my mind there is no doubt colonials bartered then, just like a recession causes an increase in bartering today, at least out here among rural loggers.  The off-the-books economy.  But besides knowing what various commodities and services were worth in colonial times, one had to be familiar with the exchange rates of half a dozen currencies in use.  That headache is how we wound up with a US Treasury Department.

But if I were John Moll and had rifles to sell, it wouldn’t be long before I’d want only cash.  A tradesman and not a farmer by 1772, Moll had one small lot in Allentown, one small barn and one cow to feed his young family.  He didn’t even own a horse for transportation.  There was only so much he could safely store and use.  Once the loft was full of fodder for the cow, the frau had a couple-three changes of clothes, the firewood racks and candle bins were overflowing and the larder was full to the extent they’d have trouble using more before it spoiled, he’d have little choice but to ask for cash.

Further, when Peter Newhard died in 1813, he was a wealthy man with 345 acres of prime bottomland at Laury’s near Trucker’s Mill.  Yet his estate inventory included “notes outstanding” from Peter Kuntz, David Kuntz, and John Rupp. The wording could go either way, but probably Newhard was extending credit for something….probably gun parts.  Based on the markings of this Lockplate, perhaps he was assembling locks in the last years of his life.



Either way it appears he was extending credit to younger gunmakers, perhaps former apprentices or collaborators, as there is little doubt at least David Kuntz was his apprentice.

[Bob Smalser]

And pioneer farmers?  One doesn’t have to scratch very deep out here to meet some real pioneer farmers, or their children at least.  The two younger lads sitting with their feet dangling over the log floats of their family houseboat cum logging camp are Delbert and Albert Sprague, who my family bought acreage from in 1975, when they were in their 80’s.  We went in together to buy their half-section hunting camp.  At the time they were living on the farm they had established 50 years earlier, 17 miles closer to civilization.



Further, gunmaker Peter Newhard has no shortage of descendants who made their way out here following the logging trade.

This is his cousin Frank Clayton Neyhart (1862-1925) and Frank’s son, Chet (1889-1966), who were in Seattle by 1900 and logging along Hood Canal in Brinnon by 1910.



When I wonder what Peter Newhard’s riflemen cousins looked like during the Revolutionary War on their way to Quebec and the Battle of Long Island, this photo of two old-time, misery-whip loggers comes to mind.  Lean, hard, determined, tough as nails.

Today their descendants still log and truck-farm on the Olympic Peninsula near the town of Brinnon in the Dosewallips Valley, and raise Standardbred horses in the Tahuya Valley across and down the canal from Brinnon and also above Blaine, Washington, and race them at harness tracks in British Columbia.

[dannybb55]

Dont forget the most important trade items, Charcoal, iron, files, planks, salt and credit at the local market.
 Y'all haven't mentioned the most important component of early farming: access to water transport, none of the colonials built where there was not a deep creek or river. Just look at a map and that will jump out.
 Around Eastern NC farmers took their crop to market in a local sailing scow or coastal skiff of some sort and exchanged it for store credit which could be transfered from on business to another in town.

[Dphariss]

We have to be careful in studies of what people did or did not do to not drag in the 19th or 20th century.
The turn of the 20th century influx to this area which resulted in little homesteads all over the place that then starved out or even the people who settled in the 1870s were far different than those that came out in 1840s and these were different than the ones who settled Kentucky in the 1770s.

We have to be careful not to let what WE, today, would do creep into the research. Its very easy to do.
Such as demanding cash. Sure everyone would PREFER cash. But getting it is another thing.
Reedy had been buried for a couple of years before a bill for 62c was paid and it had run for a couple of years before his passing.
A simple look at what 25 cents of even a dime would buy in the 1930s will show that 25 cents was a significant amount of money to common people in the 18th century. As an example Reedy charged 33c for a bullet mould.
So why did he do this?
His neighbors needed their firearms repaired. It was likely pretty important, not optional perhaps, so he fixed the guns on TIME or took barter.

Dan