The collection consists of two volumes relating to the Dunwoody family of Marple Township, Pennsylvania, produced between 1807 and 1829. The first volume is a memoranda and expense book kept primarily by James Dunwoody, but with references to his sons John, William, and Joseph, between 1807 and 1815. It documents financial transactions for meat and livestock, crops, and farm labor, with several entries with women or notes about cash being provided to wives. Records also indicate when female laborers began their employment with the family, likely for domestic service, including one under-age girl who took up work with her parents' consent and one African American woman ("Black Hariott"). It lists the wages and expenses of Hannah Griffith, Anna Griffith, and Hanah Sithers, documenting the items they were acquiring while in the employ of the family. A recipe for making pills is present, as well as a page of household expenses. The volume has paper covers with woodcut illustrations of four scenes: "Two Sturdy Bull Dogs," "The Fox and the Goat," "An Ass and His Master," and "A Dog and his Shadow."
The second volume is a copybook kept by Jane B. Dunwoody in 1829 while attending the Marple Union Seminary, focusing on banking, business, legal, and real estate transactions. She studied document forms, such as indentures for apprentices, promissory and judgement notes, property leasing, proxy votes, bonds, bills of sale, mortgages, among others. The volume has illustrated, printed covers. The front cover is labelled "The Pet Lamb" and shows a man holding a lamb in his arms with pasted-on letters "JBD Book," and the back cover is labelled "The Pheasant" and shows a pheasant accompanied by a description of the bird by Goldsmith.
James Dunwoody of Marple Township, Pennsylvania, was born in 1745 and was married to Rachel Burn. Together they had at least six children: David, Jane, William, James, John, and Joseph. James Dunwoody died in 1815, and his son John inherited the family farm in Marple.
John Dunwoody was born in 1787, was a member of the Society of Friends, and married Gulielma Fell in 1816. They had at least six children: Jane, Penrose, William, Mary, John, Anna Maria, and Gulielma. They moved to Springfield, Pennsylvania, in 1856. John died in 1865. His daughter Jane, born in 1816, would go on to marry Ebenezer R. Curtis and have at least one child, Penrose D. She died in 1895 and is buried in the Springfield Friends Burial Ground.
