M.B. Callaghan operated a general store in Charlton, New York in the decades before the Civil War. This daybook chronicles Callaghan's purchases from various wholesale merchants in stocking his store, and documents the range of merchandise available in towns like Charlton.

The daybook is divided into several sections. The first fifty pages provide an itemized list of purchases between 1844 and 1846. The next ninety-two pages cover store purchases from 1846-1854; they list only the merchant and the dollar amount on one page followed by the notation paid or the arrangement for paying on the opposite page. On several pages, there are accumulations of notes due. The next twenty-five pages document purchases in 1854-1855, arranged by the wholesaler, rather than chronologically. Callaghan then returned to the chronological accounting of purchases for 1856-1857. Finally, the book concludes with two thirty-page inventories of the goods on hand on April 12, 1859 and April 14, 1860.

Among the wholesalers with whom Callaghan dealt were Van Heusen and Charles (Albany), Asher Cook, H.C. Foster, Craig and Co. (Schenectady), and the Schenectady & Mohawk Sheeting Co. Callaghan also dealt with various unnamed peddlers.