There is an unknown number of entries missing due to the following reasons which I came across by reading notes left in the ledger books, by my ancestors:

In the very beginning the little information that was recorded was recorded in the general store's books, which some of have long ago been lost, pilfered or destroyed.

The years, 1868, 1875, 1873, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1900, 1901, 1907, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1931, 1942, 1950 and 1953 were know as plague years. When our local area, and sometimes other areas worldwide, were hard hit by the following illnesses. Polio, Smallpox, Cholera, Typhoid, Influenza, Plague, Smallpox, Spanish Influenza and others. At times during those years there were massive numbers of deaths and illnesses within small communities, with periods of time when 50% to 70% of the Scranton area workforce were not available for there jobs. Hiring replacements was next to impossible and even the people that traveled from other states just to get work didn’t want to work for a undertaker due to the circumstances. The rather lengthy note/explanation that I found in the 1918 ledger book read partly as follows, ”...... with so many sick or dead, including three of my own, resulting from the plague, myself and the help that I have left ......... We open the door in the morning only to find bodies left on the doorstep, unknown as to who they might be or where they come from. We have worked diligently and have succeeded to supply every soul entrusted to our care a proper burial. Having neither the time, supplies or the knowledge to make out the records normally kept, I have left the entries for pages 131 to 246 blank to represent the souls that we have cared for during that time.”

Several records were lost from the 1940's due to the poor quality of paper that was available because of the war effort.  The pages in these books just disintegrated and the pieces turned to dust as you tried to pick them up.  The poor quality paper story was handed down by ancestors, I myself think that they may have been stored in a different location than most of the others.  So maybe it was a combination of both.

Record books from the 1920's and 1930's were being transported in the back of a vehicle which had a fire in it and some of those records were lost forever.  Most of the books were left intact but several of the beginning and ending pages were burned up completely.  This I was told happened when a bookkeeper had picked these books up at the funeral home, (he was bartering his services for payment of his child's funeral costs) put them in the back of his car and stopped for a container of either gasoline or maybe kerosene on the way home.  He placed that on the back floor, it split, he was a cigar smoker and I guess the two meet.  He was unhurt.