Modern History of the Ira Peck Store Ledger or How Its Contents Were Saved from Another Fire!

Several years before my mother died in 1965, she contacted a lifelong friend, Miss Ray Bond, of Twiggs County and asked her about any old records concerning that county.  In one of many conversations, Miss Bond told her about an old book from an early store in the county that had been in the possession of her family for years.  Since the Bond family had operated a store and lived near to my mother's people for generations, she naturally hoped it would give her information that would be helpful to her in her research on her Read family, so she pursued the location  of the book.  Miss Ray made inquiry and found it was in the possession of a relative (brother?), Mr. Alfred Bond, who at that time was living in Florida.  Before anything positive could be done about viewing the book, Miss Ray died.  Not long after my mother died, also.  

In the meantime a longtime family friend, Eleanor Davis McSwain,  began to talk to me about putting a book together on Twiggs Co.  At the same time she began to urge me to contribute my collection to this book.  In one of our endless conversations I mentioned my mother and her attempts to see the store ledger.  Eleanor was born and reared in Twiggs Co, and knew the Bonds personally, so she immediately got in touch with the Bond family  and found that Mr. Alfred and the ledger had moved back to this area.  We began our search for the "missing" ledger!

A Bond family member had the ledger at his office which was in a former residence.   He used the lower floor for his office, the second floor (with no air conditioning) for storage.  It was there we copied the ledger.  It was a long, narrow book covered in worn cowhide.  In the meantime Eleanor and I had discovered that it was the store of Ira Peck at old Marion.  Many times  in the afternoon during that hot summer she and I went to the law office, up the stairs and copied.  Some times she would read and I would write and vice versa. 

When her book, a paper back entitled Abstracts of Some Documents of Twiggs County Georgia was printed she gave me a copy personally inscribed   "To my friend, Bessie Clark, in grateful appreciation for without her efficient help and encouragement this book would  have probably never been completed.  Signed: Eleanor D. McSwain, May 2, 1972." I had given her much of my hitherto unpublished material. 

 Allegedly, in later years, there were negotiations to sell the original Ira Peck store ledger to Mercer University.   However,  there was a fire where the old ledger was stored and it was burned beyond redemption.

What a shame it is gone, but we are fortunate in that it was painstakingly transcribed and placed in the Georgia Archives and other repositories as part of  Eleanor's book.  I am grateful for the efforts of Bessie Julia Read Vaughn, my mother, for without her interest and persistence, we may have never known of this "treasure" known as the Ira Peck Store Ledger.

Bess Vaughn Clark

August 6, 2000

 

For more information see Abstracts of Some Documents of Twiggs County Georgia, Compiled by Eleanor D. McSwain, 1972, National Printing Company, 164 Franklin Street, Macon, GA, pp. 244 - 273, "Merchant's Day  Book 'C', 1826-1827."