Quoting from Mrs. Florence Hutchison's transcription:

“To come into the possession of the James S. Anderson undertakers sales records for the 1840's is a remarkable 
happenstance.  We owe our heartfelt thanks to John Power for his kindness in permitting me to photocopy these 
old valuable record books.  There are seven books, with one missing.  It will take a long time to make an index of 
the names in these books.

These dates of evident casket and services purchases may be the only record of death a researcher may find, unless 
one were able to locate the place of burial, and find an existing tombstone some one has seen and recorded for public use.

From the prices listed one can tell something of the economic or social status of a given family by the amount paid for a 
coffin, or extras.  Also one may judge the size of a babe or approximate age of a son or daughter by the cost of the coffin, 
since these vary from $2.50 for “babes” and $3.50 to $7.00 for children, with $8.00 being the usual price for an adult, 
later $9.00.

A sudden jump in prices of coffins and attendance and boxes started on pages 47 and 48.  The Anderson Undertakers 
evidently added a new line for affluent customers since some cost as much as $20.00 Then the prices settled back to a 
little higher than the original ones.

Many names appear to be sound-spelled, or mis-spelled.  Therefore, one has to search other possible surnames in this 
index, as they have been recorded as they appeared in the original book.

When the purchaser was listed as “self”, it probably meant the decedent and not a person purchasing a coffin in 
anticipation of death.  These entries are all of the entries in the first book we have found of the James S. Anderson 
Furniture Store in Jacksonville, who were also Undertakers, for the period of time 1840-1849.  This particular book, 
however, runs from page 55 to 102 yet, from January 5, 1850 to November 11, 1854.  At this point in time, I had no time 
to complete indexing this complicated and time-consuming record, but anyway I thought it preferable to stop just short 
of the 1850 period in order to coordinate the rest of the purchases and names of decedents with the 1850 census records 
that are available for further genealogical research.”