Ulster-born John Montgomery was another brother-in-law. He married Sidney Smith, John Smith's younger sister, in 1755. John Montgomery described himself as merchant and shopkeeper in deeds, although he is better remembered for his service in the Pennsylvania Assembly, the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, the Continental Congress and as co-founder of Dickinson College. Unlike Smith and Buchanan, he remained in Carlisle. The operations of a backcountry merchant were meticulously recorded in Montgomery's one surviving store ledger. He evidently relied upon William West, James Fulton, Samuel Purviance, Sr., and his own brother-in-law, John Smith, for his stock in trade and offered a bewildering varieties of textiles and every other article from six-plate iron stoves to Philadelphia beaver hats. Customers of every social class appear to have demanded cloth of many different kinds, weaves, colors and quality. They paid him in as many different ways: cash, credit for work performed, bills of exchange, cash paid to his creditors, turnips, cider, wheat, corn, whiskey, furs and deerskins. Flaxseed was not a major item in his store credits, but he charged Robert Miller for "Carriage of Flaxseed to Phila. and goods back." Montgomery oversaw the Cumberland County interest of Philadelphia merchants Adam Hoops and James Fullton and of John Smith, merchant of Baltimore Town, paying taxes, collecting rents, keeping their Carlisle property in repair, and marketing their share of the tenant's crops on their own plantations.
