1847 there had been kept on his place 27,784 cattle, 30,000 sheep and
700 mules, and it is said that occasionally there would be 2,000 head
between his tavern and that of John Preston's in Dover. When Mr. Albert
J. Akin was a young man he was considered an expert judge and buyer of
steers for fattening, and generally had the finest herd of fat cattle."

This reference is to the business at its height and applies to the years
1800-1850. In the books of John Toffey's store are frequent references
to the business.

Interesting material is furnished for the study of the period of
transition, in the records of the store kept by John Toffey at Site No.
53. These old day-books and ledgers are incomplete, but they cover
spaces of time in the years 1814, 1824, 1833; and their account of the
purchases made by John Toffey's customers furnishes a record, we may
suppose, of the goods brought into the households on the Hill at that
time, from other communities; as well as the actual exchange of
commodities on the Hill, where at that time diversified industries were
carried on.

The growth of trade in these respects, from the period 1814-1816 to the
period 1824-1833 will be considered in four lines, as it is exhibited in
the commodities: first of Costume, second of Food and Medicine, and
third of Tools and Material for Industry, fourth, of House-furnishings.
It is assumed that John Toffey kept a representative store, and that the
growth in his trade corresponded to the growth in the commercial
interchange in the community.

In 1814-1816 the imported goods kept and sold by John Toffey are cloth
(perhaps in part locally manufactured), indigo, thread, cambric,
penknives, knitting needles, spelled "nittenneedels," plaster, fine
salt, molasses, tea, apple-trees, nutmeg, shad and occasionally other
fish. The list is brief, and its proportion to the other commodities
sold in the store evidences the simplicity of a community dependent
chiefly upon itself, and living a life of rudeness and content.

Among prices which change in the twenty years recorded in John Toffey's
books are those of molasses which was in 1814-1816 $2.00 per gallon, and
fell to $1.25 and in 1824 to 35c. per gallon. "Tobago" was sold in 1814
at $2.75 per pound, and later for 62c. Flour was sold in 1814 for $18
per barrel, or 9c. per pound; wool hats at $4; fine salt 10c. per pound;
plaster $3.25 per hundredweight; boots at $9.00; tea at $2.75 per pound.

A day's wo