The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections The University of Toledo Finding Aid Joseph Guillaume Devacht Papers 1817-1832 MSS-003

Size: 1 linear foot

Provenance: received from Mrs. Charles H. Bowers, of Toledo, a descendant of Joseph G. Devacht, donated this collection to the University of Toledo Libraries in 1955.

Access: open

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

Completed by: Paul Gifford, February 1986

Biographical Sketch

1761 - Born in Flanders, Holland.
        
1790 - Came to America on the ship La Patrie joined the French colony
At Gallipolis; a silversmith and general merchant there.
       
1798 - Married Madame Parma tier

1844 - Died in Gallipolis

Scope and Content Note

The two bound volumes that form this collection consist of a ledger, 1817-32, and a daybook, 1824-30. In the ledger, Devacht recorded his accounts with individuals. Each account contains debit and credit entries. The debit entries contain little more than the amounts the individual owed at different times to Devacht, due to purchase. The researcher can find out what the individual purchased, if the date of the particular transaction falls into the time range covered by the daybook, by referring to the transaction in the daybook by date. The credit entries, on the other hand, generally describe how the debtor settled his debts: with cash, through labor, rent, or bill of account  
       
The daybook, although covering a shorter period of time, probably contains information more useful to the researcher. A larger number of individuals are mentioned, and purchases are described. A typical page, for example, shows that during one week in 1827 Devacht sold whiskey, coffee, nails, sugar, gun powder, tobacco, corn meal, and more whiskey.

Devacht’s handwriting is neat and the condition of the paper and binding is relatively good.

Box-Folder Inventory

Box	Folder	Folder Title
1	1	Ledger, 1818-1834
	2	Daybook, 1826-1830
		(The above Items are located on Range 4)