[1] Christopher Vanlear’s Day Book, beginning in April 1767 and ending in 1783, is housed in the Downs Collection in the library at Winterthur, Wilmington, Delaware.
[2] Many different types of information can be gleaned from a careful study of a tavern ledger. In addition to information about travelers, taverns were the pubs of their day for locals. One can see the frequency that a man came to the tavern as well as what he liked to drink. If he shared a bowl of punch with several other men, it was noted on his account as a “club of punch.” Rather than settling their accounts with cash, many customers paid in kind. Cabinetmakers sometimes paid their accounts with a piece of furniture; tailors by making clothes for the tavernkeeper and his family, butchers with meat and laborers by hauling goods for the tavernkeeper, etc.
[3] Likely the son of Christopher Vanlear of Derry Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania who died in 1750.
[4] The Simon Gratz Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, contains a 1763 invoice for hauling goods. See also Judith Ridner “Relying the “Saucy” Men of the Backcountry: Middlemen and the Fur Trade in Pennsylvania,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. CXXIX, No. 2 (April 2005), 142.
[5] Merri Lou Schaumann, Taverns of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania 1750-1840. (Carlisle: Cumberland County Historical Society, 1994.) 29.
[6] Ibid; see also Cumberland County Recorder of Deeds, Deed 1-C-463.
[7] Cumberland County Recorder of Deeds. Deed 1-QQ-2.
[8] Cumberland County Recorder of Deeds, Sheriff’s Deed Book A-28. The lot went to the heir, nephew Matthew Vanlear. In 1823, Matthew Vanlear of Washington County, Maryland sold the lot to William Underwood. (For all transactions see Deed 1-QQ-2).
[9] April 13, 1775 for tract of land marked No. 13 in the plan of “Appropriated Land of the Town of Carlisle,” containing 183 acres 43 perches. PA State Archives-Land Warrants and Applications 1733-1952. See also “Carlisle tavernkeeper and waggoner” written on Vanlear’s May 26, 1767 warrant application for 200 acres in Horse Valley “on the head waters of the Conodoguinet including the upper salt block.” (PA State Archives-Land Warrants and Applications 1733-1952) .
[10] Cumberland County Register of Wills. Inventory of Christopher Vanlier V-3. August 3, 1783. (Microfilm at CCHS).