Business records of John Jordan (1777-1854) and John Irvine (b. 1781), Rockbridge
County, Virginia, merchants, millers, builders, and ironmasters, representing their
activities both before and after they formed their partnership about 1821. Although
many accounts appear for the purchase and sale of general merchandise, most of the
records concern the company's construction of a canal for the James River and
Kanawha Company, and their production of iron at furnaces and forges in Rockbridge
and Alleghany counties. Canal records, 1823-1826, include specifications, estimates,
registers of workmen, and letters concerning procurement of labor and supplies.
Through the following decade the manufacture and sale of iron accounts for most of
the correspondence and records.
The papers contain Jordan and Irvine's
communications with local planters and merchants such as Robert Brooks, John F.
Caruthers, William H. Graves, James McDowell Jr., John Ruff, and William Willson;
business agents and dealers in Lynchburg and Richmond such as Samuel McCorkle,
Bernard Peyton, Robert White, and Lewis Webb & Co.; and ironmasters such as
Samuel F. Jordan, William Lusk, and William Weaver, as well as Baltimore and
Philadelphia companies. Included also are letters and receipts from lawyer James D.
Davidson and county clerk Samuel McDowell Reid; a volume showing property tax levies
and collections for residents of Rockbridge County in 1806; and an iron forge
account book, 1843-1844, kept by Joseph G. Trerey and Washington Jackson.
