Operator of a general store in Cambridgeport, Vermont, as well as a postmaster and a deacon of the Congregational Church. Daybook includes lists of stock, how he acquired his goods, and method and form of payment (cash or exchange of goods and services).

Chiefly correspondence from various Dall family members in Boston, Massachusetts, particularly father William Dall, Revolutionary War veteran, merchant, businessman and former Yale College writing master, to sons William and James Dall in Baltimore, Maryland. Letters of son James Dall, then a student at Harvard University, provide accounts of Boston political and cultural activities of the time.

The correspondence documents the daily changes in the life of a merchant’s family in the early 19th century, reflecting anxiety over trade restrictions, embargoes, and other economic disruptions resulting from the War of 1812. The elder Dall (William 3rd) and much of his family lived in Boston, but two sons lived in Baltimore. The bulk of the correspondence consists of letters to the younger son, William 4th, who was then apprenticed to a Baltimore merchant. The letters of son James Dall, then a student at Harvard University, provide accounts of Boston political and cultural activities.

Owner of a general store and a woolen factory, postmaster, town clerk, and state senator from Gaysville in Stockbridge, Vermont. Daybooks document accounts and transactions with individuals, businesses, Town of Stockbridge, and Narrows School District, method and form of payment (cash and goods), and Gay’s purchases, including labor costs for hauling his freight.

Although poorly known, Chauncey S. Gillett (1815-1846) appears to have carried on a relatively small custom at a general store in Southwick, Massachusetts, during the early 1840s. The son of Almon and Cinthia Gillett, Gillett traded in the typical range of groceries, dry goods, and other commodities, including buttons, cloth, paper, tobacco and tea, molasses, and candles, but also in liquors of various sorts (rum, gin, and brandy cider). Gillett died at the age of 30 on January 4, 1846, and is buried in Southwick.

Kept by the young Chauncey Gillett, this daybook records a chronological series of transactions at a general stores in Southwick, Mass., between 1841 and 1845. Among Gillett’s customers were several relatives, including Almon, Rhodolphus, and Levi Gillett, all of whom are also buried in the Southwick cemetery.

Justice of the peace, merchant, landowner, and entrepreneur from Prescott and Shutesbury, Massachusetts. Nine volumes contain descriptions of his duties as justice of the peace, a book of deeds and mortgages from local real estate transactions, account books of sales in his general store and from his palm leaf hat business, and notes of accounts with individuals.

In the 1860 census, brothers Charles W. (b. 1824) and Joseph F. (b. 1828) Hodges resided in the same house along with Charles’ wife Mary and their year old son Charles Jr. These two account books are presumed to be the customer ledgers of the Hodges and Messinger grocery store in Foxborough, Massachusetts, based on the list of customers and their proximity to the store in the 1876 county atlas.

Personal, business, and legal papers of the Howe family of Enfield and Dana, Massachusetts, including correspondence between family members, genealogies, account books and printed materials. Account books record transactions of various family members whose occupations included general storekeeper, minister, printer, postmaster, telephone exchange and gas-station owner, and document the transactions of community businesses and individuals, some of whom were women involved in the beginnings of the local palm leaf hat and mat industry.

The proprietor of a general store and postmaster in Wendell Depot, Mass., W. W. Hunt carried on a thriving business for a small Franklin County town during the 1880s and 1890s. Selling a range of dry goods, foodstuffs, and other goods, Hunt catered to residents in Wendell and neighboring communities up and down the Miller River.

An extensive ledger, marked No. 5, the W.W. Hunt account book contains records of sales of a surprising range of dry goods and foodstuffs, snaths and scythes, stamps and envelopes, and other goods useful to a rural community. Although most of Hunt’s customers were individuals seemingly purchasing for personal consumption, he also sold goods to the Farley and Goddard Wood Paper Companies, the Ladies Aid Society, and the town of Wendell, with some accounts marked “Town Farm.”

Owners of a farm business/general store in Charlton, Saratoga County, New York. Includes lists of items sold, services performed (such as plowing, harvesting, and planting corn), transactions with fellow townsmen, and debts owed. Also includes newspaper clippings of poetry, samples of dried pressed foliage, written document of Ketcham family births, deaths, and marriages, and the document of a house sale agreement.

The heart of the Kress Collection lies in the livley pamphlet literature regarding Anglo-American political economics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although somewhat miscellaneous, the collection contains thousands of titles touching on many of the major issues in trade, finance, politcal reform, and public policy in Britain and to a lesser degree America. Topics range from tariffs and free trade to public debt and taxation, imports and exports, banking, unionism, and socialism. Nearly three quarters of the collection dates from before 1848.