This cashbook records Laban Morey Wheaton’s daily personal expenditure from 1851-1854. It is unclear from the presentation of this cash book if the record is complete. Although the document title has indicated it belongs to Laban Morey Wheaton, there is no signature in the document to validate this claim. Expert reviews or technical identifications of writers might have been conducted for this record. Information regarding its discovery and identification could assist further understanding of the document’s origin.

A few Boston city tax payment records in this cashbook indicate that the writer might have resided in Boston at the time of writing. On Oct 31 of 1854, $105 was paid to the city of Boston. Relating this record to the role of Laban Morey Wheaton as the founder of Wheaton College at Norton, Massachusetts, this cash book might have been written in the Boston or Norton area. However, corroboration with the cashbook’s history of discovery would be beneficial in validating this claim.

We could infer a variety of information from this document. For example, one use of this record, as mentioned by Marion B. Gebbie Archies at Wheaton College, is to research the “ [Wheaton family’s] support to Wheaton Female Seminary” (Wheaton College, n.d.) Another use could be to investigate the spending patterns of affluent families in the mid-19th century to aid in researching economic shifts in the local area. Finally, we could also explore the records such as tax payments or ordinary spending on household items such as a hat to aid studies of 19th-century governance, the historical patterns of inflation, or genealogy for a specifc social class.

This document contains unintelligible handwritten entries. A typed copy would help in exploring further uses of these entries. Some missing pieces of history could be re-discovered by connecting the expenditures with events that happened within and beyond the Wheaton’s family’s circle.