- Date: 28 March 1893; due 28 March 1894
- Place: Sidney, Nebraska
- Document: Promissory note for $150 at 10 per cent interest
- Signed by: Joseph Sharmer and Katie Sharmer
- Payable to: James R. Williams
- Condition: Photocopy of the original
THE NOTE
$150.00 — Sidney, Nebr. March 28th 1893
12 months after date we promise to pay to the order of James R. Williams One Hundred and Fifty Dollars at Sidney Nebraska — with 10 per cent Interest from date of the note. Value received.
Joseph Sharmer
Katie Sharmer
No. — Due March 28 — 1894
Notes & context
A note, not a check. This is a printed promissory note of the kind sold by stationers in the 1890s, decorated with a hunting dog and a vignette. Joseph and Katie Sharmer promised to repay $150, with interest at 10 per cent a year, twelve months later. $150 was a substantial sum in 1893 — several months’ wages for a working man.
Both signatures. Katie signed alongside her husband. Five years later his will declared that the “Sharmer cattle” were hers (Uncle Joe’s Will, 1898), and she seems to have been a partner in the family’s business from early on.
1893. The note was signed weeks before the Panic of 1893, which brought a severe depression to the farm and ranch country of the West. What it was for, and who James R. Williams was, are not known.
See also Joseph Sharmer I and Uncle Joe and Katie.
