(BUSINESS) Account book of a merchant in Salem NJ with a lar

Sale 2471 - Lot 143

Price Realized: $ 1,235

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(BUSINESS.) Account book of a merchant in Salem, NJ with a largely African-American clientele. [32] manuscript pages. 4to, stitched, with remnant of detached wrapper; moderate wear and dampstaining. Salem, NJ, December 1798 to April 1804

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Additional Details

The merchant who kept this daybook in southwestern New Jersey seemed to have a predominantly African-American clientele--in some cases proven by research, such as Plim Clover, suggested in others by distinctive names such as Caesar Gipson, Cuffey Miller, London Miller, Tobe Clark, Primus Smith, Martha Caesar, and three individuals called Nicholson's Frank, Nicholson's Harry, and Nicholson's Saw. Further research is hindered by the lack of an 1800 or 1810 census of New Jersey, but the extant 1830 census shows a large free black community in neighboring Elsinboro, many with surnames that appear in this volume such as Branson, Miller, and Mayhew. The volume records sales of pickled pork and hides, as well as labor accounts. The author is unknown. Worthy of further research.
with--a less intriguing daybook which came out of the same auction, also headed "Salem," 1817. Provenance: Remember When Auctions, Wells, ME, 12 February 1996, lots 223 and 224.