[MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT BOOK KEPT BY ACCOMPLISHED NEW YORK CABINETMAKER PETER PRINE]

Prine, Peter

Published by [Auburn, N.Y., 1854

[87]pp. Small quarto. Original half calf and plain paper boards. Binding worn, vertical tear in paper on front board, paper partially detached from rear board. A few leaves torn out, first leaf detached. Good. A rare survival documenting early 19th- century American craftsmanship, this is the account book of successful upstate New York cabinetmaker Peter Prine, kept over a period of nearly thirty years. Prine's account book, noted as "Peter Prine His Book April the 25th 1826" on the first page, has a mix of journal and ledger entries, billing customers for a voluminous amount of furniture and other wood products, including dining and breakfast tables, clock cases, maple French bedsteads, mahogany bookcases and bureaus, coffins, and much more, interspersed with his personal purchases and material received in barter. There is also a recipe for varnish on one page. Though the bulk of Prine's work concerns finished products such as tables and coffins, he also records work such as planing wood, forming mills, and other various carpentry projects. Notable additions to the standard account content are two illustrations: an ink diagram titled "Directions for a Loom or a Half Loom," and a diagram for a cabinet with measurements on the rear pastedown. The journal-type entries herein are more detailed "running accounts" organized by the person Prine bought from, sold to, or worked for over the course of his life. Besides his carpentry work, Prine seems to have sold various crops from his farm, including buckwheat, peaches, corn, and more. The vast majority of the entries in the account book emanate from before 1841. Peter Prine (1804-1882) was a cabinetmaker and carpenter in Auburn in western New York, having apparently learned the trade from his father, Daniel. By 1850 he had removed to the nearby town of Ira, and later in life he moved further west to Wyoming County, New York, continuing to practice the same trade. An 1895 history of Wyoming County notes that "Peter Prine learned the trade of cabinet maker, carpenter, and joiner, working for some time as a journeyman at Auburn." Manuscript material from early American carpenters and cabinetmakers is always desirable, and growing increasingly scarce in the market. BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW: THIS VOLUME CONTAINS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE LEADING CITIZENS OF LIVINGSTON AND WYOMING COUNTIES NEW YORK (Boston: Biographical Review Publishing Company, 1895), p.502. Seller Inventory # WRCAM55795

Bibliographic Details

Title: [MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT BOOK KEPT BY ...
Publisher: [Auburn, N.Y.
Publication Date: 1854