In 1801, the store owner and farmer Bela Burnett (b. 1778) settled in Granby, Massachusetts, with his new wife, Clarissa Warner. During their brief marriage, the Burnetts had a daughter, who survived for only a year, and two sons, Bela Jr. and Stoughton (b.1807), before Clarissa's death in 1807 at the age of 27. Bela entered into marriage for a second time in 1808 to Sally Allen, and produced two daughters, Clarissa and Sallena, and less certainly, two more sons. Burnett died in Granby in 1841.

Burnett's account book includes records of transactions for a typical general store in rural western Massachusetts. Many of Burnett's customers were credited by doing farm work for Burnett, including hoeing, planting, picking corn, carting, threshing, mowing, and chopping wood. He sold a wide variety of goods, ranging from dairy products such as cheese, milk and butter to veal, mutton, bacon and beef, fruit and vegetables like cucumbers, onions, apples, turnips, watermelons and pumpkins according to season. Burnett also sold an array of other goods, such as ox bows, weaving cloth, plaster, tallow, brick, bushels of oats and rye, straw and cider, mittens, woolen shirts, and feathers. One customer, Stephen Burnett. seems to have been a shoemaker as his usual purchases were shoelaces and upper leather and calfskin.

Customers paid in cash as well as kind and many of his customers performed farm work as credit. Some kept yearlings and other animals for Burnett; David Smith kept 31 hogs once. He accepted credit in the form of horse and cart transport to the neighboring towns of Ludlow or Belchertown. Other customers traded shirts, mittens, or stockings as payment for purchases. Along with the income from his store, Burnett also took boarders; only Mary Nash boarded for more than a year and in 1836, he paid for Dr. Ingram to see her while she was sick. Burnett and each customer signed every transaction but on several occasions there is the signature of Tim A.P. Marsh who was also a customer, and apparently either a trusted confidante or partner.

Burnett assigned most customers a number, and the ledger lists 38 regulars among a total of approximately 50 customers. Although Burnett or his store do not appear in published Granby histories, a few of his customers were prominent men in society. Asa Robbins, customer 31, owned the first woolen mill in Granby until it failed in 1837 due to his involvement in the building of the West Church. The same David Smith that kept hogs for Burnett was also Representative of Hampshire County in 1820 and postmaster. Joseph Dickinson, Chester Smith, Joseph Mason and Giles Montague were all Selectmen of Granby sometime during the period from 1815-1835.

A number of loose pieces of paper include calculations by Burnett regarding his accounts, with a few containing other bits of information, ranging from Burnett's notice that he had discovered a stray pig in his enclosure and requesting the owner to take it away and pay damages, to a newspaper clipping from the Springfield Gazette in 1820 with advertisements for imported goods such as Jamaica Spirit, Holland Gin, Souchong tea and English kettles. The reverse side is from "The Retort Romantic" that contains a note of Caution from W.M. Robinson about his 'stray' wife and an answer from her. There is also a summons by King George III to Jesse Warner of Wilbraham, who owes Charles a sum of 10 pounds. Another loose leaf seems to be a remedy for yellow jaundice that includes ingredients such as goose dung, saffron, Barbary bark and insects.

On the last page of his ledger, Burnet kept account of his family members, and the ledger contains some occasional family notices. A loose piece of paper makes note of the death of Jonathan Burnett in May 1826, and the same piece of paper records the death of the widow Mary Nash in 1839 at the age of 85. Mary Nash was listed in the ledger as a boarder and the 1810-1830 censuses list an elderly female in the household.