Within the collections of the Millbrook Historical Society is a rare and vital survival from the years immediately before the Revolutionary War: the store ledgers of Joseph Mabbett. Though many pages have been torn out, what remains details the purchases of residents throughout central Dutchess—and occasionally their enslaved laborers—in 1773 and 1774. An inscription on the inside of the front cover suggests that someone involved in keeping the ledger may have harbored Loyalist sympathies. Is that why so many pages are torn out?

Join Dutchess County Historian Will Tatum for a careful reading of the ledger’s entries that will reveal how people lived, worked, and clothed themselves in early Dutchess. Attendees will leave with an expanded understanding of what Dutchess County residents consumed and how their lives may have been impacted by the trade embargo with Great Britain and the war that soon followed after the ledger entries concluded.