June | |||
1st | beef 23 butter 72 saleratus 16 cheese 95 | 2 | 23 |
2 | postage 5 wash=woman 50 | 55 | |
6 | Cocoa shells 20 beef & veil 75 | 95 | |
8 | postage 15 medicene 5 | 20 | |
11 | Sent letter to St. Petersburg | 31 | |
12 | potatoes 25 Molases 30 | 55 | |
15 | butter 67 vinegar 5 corn meal 41 | 1 | 13 |
16 | shoes for George 47 sythe 92 | 1 | 79 |
| hat 100, slipers 63 beef 31 fish 40 | 2 | 14 | |
22 | ti Miss Sweet for 5 1300 | 13 | 00 |
weeks work | |||
| pork 25 molases 30 medicene 10 | 65 | ||
25 | butter 66 Dryd apple 54 | 1 | 20 |
29 | potatoes 31 oranges 6 | 37 | |
| Cocoa 10 | 10 | ||
25 | 17 | ||
June 9 | Paid to Joseph Severance | ||
| first of month's work | 30. | 00 | |
16 | " for 1 weeks work | 4 | 50 |
23 | "5 1/2 days " | 4 | 15 |
In amongst Dexter Marsh's entries for daily expenses, note that on November 10, 1849 (at the bottom of page 7), "bird tracks arrived from St. Petersburg." This refers to fossils he had sent over two years previously to an American businessman in Russia, asking him to convey them as a gift to Czar Nicholas. Giving a gift to a czar was no easy matter, however, and Marsh had to pay freight charges to have them returned after delivery attempts proved futile.
Interestingly, on the same day, he sent butter to Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey. He paid freight on specimens from Constantinople on December 6, and on April 5, sent maple sugar. It is likely that these items were for the use of American missionaries, as several couples from the towns in the hills and valleys of the Connecticut River region were in Turkey, hoping to convert people to their particular brand of Protestantism.