PEACOCK SALESMAN IN FANEUIL HALL (MASSACHUSETTS.) Quimby, John Tyler. Diary of a Boston dealer in birds and cages. 133 manuscript diary pages plus 30 pages of memoranda. 12mo, original cloth, faded; dampstained and largely disbound. (MRS) Boston and elsewhere, January to December 1865
John Tyler Quimby (1834-1911?) was a native of Thetford, VT. He left town for a few years to try his hand in business in Boston. After a few months of running some kind of stall at Faneuil Market, he opened a store where he sold birds and cages. It is first mentioned on 15 May: "Went to the market, talked about buying a bird store." Ten days later he "commenced with new operations in the stall." The diary doesn't go into much detail on the business, other than regular entries like "Business good" or (more frequently) "business very dull." He once noted "Could find no birds" (27 December 1865), and his cash account for August mentions "to cost left for peacocks, $25.00." He apparently had a liberal racial attitude for the period, writing "A colored man spoke on the subject of freedmen, very good" (16 July 1865), and "At the colored church in the evening" (24 September 1865). On 19 April he noted "The funeral of the President. All things kept quiet, and was a solemn day." After the period of this diary, Quimby soon returned to Thetford and spent the remainder of his life there.
