Tag: Household Stores

Benjamin Hawkins: Rum and the Consumer Revolution

Griffin Bixler // AMH 4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763

In the mid-eighteenth century, several stores in Fairfax County, Virginia, were owned by two men, John Glassford and Alexander Henderson. Their store ledgers contain vast amounts of information about their customers, their credit, and the goods they bought. One interesting case within the ledger for the Colchester store (1760-1761) was Benjamin Hawkins, who purchased rum frequently from October 13, 1760, to June 8, 1761.^[1] His purchases were a product of the changing economic environment that occurred around this period.

For colonists in the Chesapeake, alcohol was an important part of life. Colonists consumed alcohol at every meal, during church, at social gatherings, and on numerous other occasions.^[2] Early in the eighteenth century, colonists acquired alcohol through producing it at their household or buying it from planters and taverns.^[3] By the mid-eighteenth century, the colonial economy expanded as a result of its connection to Britain and the rest of its empire.^[4] Goods, such as alcohol, became cheaper and diverse. Colonists could purchase new variants of alcohol that were impossible or hard to create in the colonies.

One of these was rum. A great source of rum came from Scottish traders.^[5] Previously, Scottish traders could not operate in the colonies because Britain limited colonial trade through the Navigation Acts of 1663.^[6] The Navigation Acts forced colonists, among other things, to export profitable goods, such as tobacco and sugar, only to Britain.^[7] In 1707, England and Scotland united, allowing Scottish traders to sell their goods in the colonies. In fact, this uniting provided John Glassford, who was Scottish, to become so successful in the Chesapeake through his numerous stores. Rum became increasingly popular with the lower classes with many of the lower classes enjoying rum for its fortitude in the hot Chesapeake climate and its cheap price. Rum, along with other alcohols, also lessened servants’ dependence on planters for drink.^[8]

As mentioned earlier, the majority of Hawkins’ purchases were rum. His account shows that he purchased rum every couple of days through the month of November 1760. Hawkins mostly purchased rum one quart at a time, but there was an exception on November 4, 1760. On that day, Hawkins purchased a gallon of rum. The gallon of rum, according to the credit side of the account, was paid for in cash, although not in its entirety as the rum cost 6 shillings and Hawkins only provided the store 5. Hawkins returned the next day and purchased only “1/4 [one quart] Rum.”^[9]

Benjamin Hawkins’s purchases at the Colchester store, 1760-1761, folio 43D. Alcohol purchases are underlined.

In all, he purchased seven gallons and two quarts of rum between October 13, 1760, and March 13, 1761. In addition to rum, Hawkins purchased brandy on several occasions (January 10, January 17, and February 5, 1761), a bridle (October 13, 1760), silk stockings (April 15, 1761), and a tin canister (June 8, 1761). The tin canister was the last purchase he made at the Colchester store in 1761.^[10]

An example of what might have been a rum bottle, made by Richard Wistar between 1745-55. Image from the Corning Museum of Glass, Acc. No. 86.4.196.

An interesting element that came up during research was Hawkins’s involvement in several court cases. It seems that Hawkins legally quarreled with a man named Hugh Guttray. Hawkins was a defendant in an injunction case in opposition to Guttray.^[11] An injunction is a court order that a person is either allowed or not allowed to do something. He was also involved as a plaintiff in a chancery suit.^[12] A chancery suit entails a matter of equity, such as a dispute over land or individual status.^[13] These court cases occurred after the period when Hawkins purchased his rum from Glassford and Henderson’s store, but were the disputes a reason for Hawkins’s drinking? It is difficult to tell whether his drinking was exacerbated by the court cases. After a hiatus in his account, it resumed in January 1765. Now living in Augusta, Virginia, Hawkins had to pay court fees to Prince William County (adjacent to Fairfax County). On the credit side, it showed that the payment was moved “By Ballance to Liber F,” which meant Hawkins accrued the fees as a debt. Hawkins did not buy alcohol during this period.^[14]

Benjamin Hawkins’ constant purchase of rum illustrates the changes that occurred in the colonial economy. Rum, and other accessible goods, became affordable to the colonists. His constant purchases of rum would have been inconceivable several decades earlier. The colonial economy was going through a “consumer revolution,” which facilitated the purchase of diverse goods at cheaper prices.^[15]

^[1] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folio 43 Debit, from the John Glassford and
Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the
Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[2] Sarah H. Meacham, Early America: History, Context, Culture : Every Home a Distillery : Alcohol, Gender, and
Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009), 6.

^[3] Meacham, Every Home, 82.

^[4] Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America, (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 310.

^[5] Meacham, Every Home, 85.

^[6] Taylor, American Colonies, 258.

^[7] Ibid., 306.

^[8] Meacham, Every Home, 82-87.

^[9] Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, folio 43 Debit.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Fairfax Court Order Book 1756, page 572, March 18, 1761, Fairfax Circuit Court Historic Records Center,
Fairfax, Va.

^[12] Fairfax Court Order Book 1756, page 596, June 16, 1761, Fairfax Circuit Court Historic Records Center, Fairfax,
Va.

^[13] Fairfax County, Virginia, “Historic Records Finding Aids,” accessed April 19, 2017, http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/courts/circuit/historical-records-finding-aids.htm

^[14] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1765, Colchester, Virginia folio 38 Debit, from the John Glassford and
Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 59 (owned by the
Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[15] Taylor, American Colonies, 310.

September 11, 2018
Turlington’s Balsam of Life: Colonial American Snake Oil?

Andrew Abbott // AMH 4110.0M01 – Colonial America, 1607-1763

It is 1761 in Fairfax County, Virginia. You feel a pain in your abdomen that will not go away. What can you do to make the pain go away? You can go see a physician to get your ailment diagnosed and treated, if you can afford it. Alternatively, you can save money by treating your condition with Turlington’s Balsam of Life.

Turlington’s Balsam was a medicine created by Robert Turlington, who obtained a patent from King George II in 1744. The medicine, Turlington claimed, would successfully treat a wide variety of illnesses, including “kidney and bladder stones, colic, and inward weakness.”^[1] In a time before both significant medical advancement and regulations on medicine, patent medicines such as Turlington’s Balsam of Life were able to make claims that seem ridiculous or deceptive by modern standards, and the average colonial American was willing to believe in such claims. As the holder of the patent, Robert Turlington had the exclusive right to manufacture his product and sell it where he wanted, including the Colchester store of John Glassford and Alexander Henderson in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Turlington’s Balsam purchased by the enslaved Negro Jack at the Colchester store in September 1761 (folio 114D).

From 1760-1761, there are at least thirteen recorded instances of customers purchasing Turlington’s Balsam of Life at the Glassford and Henderson store in Colchester, with the price ranging from four shillings and four pence to eight shillings and eight pence.^[2] This price range seems to indicate either the arrival of a new shipment from Glasgow or multiple sizes of the product for sale: there were three references to the bottle being “large.”^[3] By making his product in different sizes, Robert Turlington was able to sell his product to a larger number of people, especially those who could not afford to be treated by a physician.

A drawing of both sides of Turlington’s unique pear-shaped bottle. Image by Robert Turlington, 1755.

One problem with patent medicines, especially in 18th-century America, was the marketing of a different concoction under the same name as the patented product. Turlington’s Balsam of Life suffered this fate, which led to a decrease in sales. By 1754, the problem with counterfeit medicines led Turlington to come up with a clever way to ensure the consumers that they were getting his product: a pearshaped bottle.^[4]Turlington applied the same innovative spirit he used in creating his medicine in order to protect his intellectual property, which led to one of the more unique massproduced glass containers of colonial America. In addition to the innovative bottle shape, Turlington also issued statements warning of the potential for counterfeit versions of his product, encouraging his customers to “…be extremely careful and particular, to examine unto each Bottle that he buys, that he may not be imposed upon by any pretended or false Balsam, which may be of the greatest Prejudice to the Health and Constitution of the unhappy Patient, instead of a perfect Cure.”^[5]

Much like today, colonial Americans sought cost-effective ways to treat physical ailments without having to take time out of their day to visit a physician. Products such as Turlington’s Balsam of Life allowed them to do just that. Though they did not have access to the vast amount of readily available information as we do, colonial Americans knew enough about their bodies to be able to treat many physical problems without consulting a medical professional, but possibly with the assistance of “Every Man his own Doctor: OR The Poor Planter’s Physician” first published in the colonies in 1734. Detractors of Turlington may have referred to him as the creator of an ineffective medical panacea, familiarly known as “snake oil,” but the popularity of Turlington’s Balsam of Life suggests that there were some positive results from its use.

^[1] George B. Griffenhagen and James Harvey Young, “Old English Patent Medicines in America,” Pharmacy in History 34, no. 4 (1992): 204, accessed March 22, 2017, www.jstor.org/stable/41111487.

^[2] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folios 12, 22, 24, 30, 60, 68, 77, 78, 79, 114 133 Debit and 12 Credit, from the John Glassford and Company records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[3] Alexander Henderson, et. al., Ledger 1760-1761, folio 22, 24, and 133 Debit.

^[4] Griffenhagen and Young, “Patent Medicines,” 211.

^[5] Robert Turlington, “[No Headline],” The New-York Mercury, 22 September 1760. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers, accessed November 14, 2017

September 7, 2018
Stay Salty America

Canon Jones // AMH 4112.001 – The Atlantic World, 1400-1900

You never hear salt talked about like other spices used in the 18^th century. You never hear some high-class socialite talking in his diary about the shipment of salt he got from some exotic place and how expensive it was. No, you do not hear salt given the credit it respects or deserves. But, I bet you could go anywhere in 18^th-century America and find that everyone used salt. This magnificent spice was not just used for cooking or seasoning but had many uses, including as a preservative – let’s see cinnamon or rosemary do that. That’s why you see people buy salt by the barrel or bushel in the Glassford and Henderson Colchester store ledger for 1760-1761.

Examples of Salt purchases in the April 1761 Ready Money Pages of the Colchester store of Glassford and Henderson (folio 11).

According to the Ready Money accounts, between October 1760 and December 1761, salt was bought every month.^[1] The reason so much salt was ordered and sold was because it was a god send for preserving food. The 18^th century did not have the modern refrigeration that we have now, so they had to get creative with how to keep meats and other foods edible longer. Salt helps stabilize the food keeping it fresh for a longer time, especially in the spring and summer.^[2] Much of the salt was purchased more in the warmer months because meat goes bad faster when it’s hot, unlike in the cold when you could keep it chilled with the cooler temperatures and that’s how it stayed fresh. The month of October in 1761 there was one bushel of salt bought compared to April of 1761 there were thirteen bushels sold which was the beginning of the hotter months^[3].

Now, the salt you see when you open your spice cabinet or look on the counter was not exactly the salt that the 18^th century knew. Your Morton’s salt is baby salt compared to this salt. When customers bought salt, it was more like today’s rock salt, salt that was gravel-sized. If you wanted more dainty crushed up salt for cooking, you had to do it yourself. It could be done with a cloth and a mortar and pestle.

Rock salt could be grounded into a finer salt with a mortar and pestle. Image from http://images.wisegeek.com/rock-salt.jpg (Accessed 1 December 2016).

By the turn of the 19^th century, salt no longer needed to be imported from Europe as “salt was produced between 1790 and 1860, in Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Missouri by boiling brine in salt furnaces,” since no salt mines had yet been discovered.^[4] They did not need to be dependent on getting their salt from Europe, mining it themselves or boiling it was much easier. Regardless of how we got the salt in the 18^th century, one of the most common things in the world is (and was) one of the most important. Just remember to stay salty America.

Infographic on Salt

^[1] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folio 10-13 Debit/Credit, from the John Glassford and Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[2] Mickey Parish. “How Do Salt and Sugar Prevent Microbial Spoilage?” Scientific American. 2006. Accessed December 05, 2016. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-salt-and-sugar-pre/.

^[3] Henderson, et. al. Folio 10 Debit, 11 Credit.

^[4] “History of Salt,” History of Salt | SaltWorks®. Accessed November 07, 2016, https://www.seasalt.com/salt-101/history-of-salt.

December 11, 2016
Salt Sold at Glassford and Henderson’s Colchester Store (1760)

Ayla Lupien // AMH 4112.001 – The Atlantic World, 1400-1900

By looking back on the ledgers written by Alexander Henderson, a merchant for a store in Colchester, Virginia, in the 1700s, we can learn a lot about the way people lived, the necessities that they purchased, and luxuries that only the wealthy could afford.^[1] We can see how people from this time lived, simply from their purchases, as well as find out the names of people living during that era and what kinds of jobs they may have had. Many of the items sold also tell their own story.

Coarse rock salt could be grounded into a fine table salt with a mortar and pestle. Image from http://thepaleodiet.com/tag/salt/. (Accessed 1 December 2016).

The item I chose to research was salt, a household good used by many during the 1760s; it was purchased regularly at Glassford and Henderson’s store according to the 1760-1761 ledger. A bushel of salt is approximately 64 pints of salt. The salt was in larger chunks that would have to be broken up by the people who purchased it, unlike the fine-grained table salt we use today.^[2] The average day-to-day person regularly purchased bushels of salt, but looking at the other accounts, it is clear to see that the salt is most regularly purchased in the fall and spring months by both men, as well as women, such as Elizabeth Fallen who was a seamstress working for the store and being paid in merchandise, like salt.^[3]

Salt was a necessity in the lives of nearly everyone living at the time because it was one of the easiest ways to help preserve food. Based on the Ready Money accounts from the Colchester store, there does not seem to be much price variation regarding the salt purchased, however it was purchased in different quantities from half of a bushel up to as much as 5 bushels. Bushels of salt were purchased on 66 separate occasions throughout the year of 1760-1761. The most common months to buy salt were October 1760 (six purchases), December 1760 (nine purchases), January 1761 (eight purchases), March 1761 (six purchases), and April 1761 (fourteen purchases). March and April purchases line up with when the fisheries began operating again as the fish migrated upstream, which means that the people were likely buying the salt to preserve fish for eating later in the year. In April, we begin to see a spike in the purchases of salt, some buying as much as three bushels at once. In addition, in fall and early winter, harvests were coming in and preservation processes were happening to make sure food was kept through the winter.^[4] Hogs were also slaughtered at the end of fall or early winter, and would be preserved with salt for use throughout the coming year.

Examples of Salt purchases in the December 1760 Ready Money Pages of the Colchester store of Glassford and Henderson (folio 10).

We also see a price hike in the cost of salt as the demand increased. Rather than being 2 shillings and 6 pence, bushels of salt in the spring months cost 3 full shillings. This was likely due to the demand for salt by nearly everyone visiting the store. Because it was purchased during the late fall and spring months, it is widely believed that the salt was predominantly used for preserving foods such as fish and other meats.^[5]

Salted smelt. Image from http://rakuten.com.

By studying the purchases of the people who visited Glassford and Henderson’s Colchester store, we can develop a better understanding of their habits and way of life, which in turn can help us unlock various mysteries of our history.

Infographic on Salt

^[1] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia, from the John Glassford and Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Microfilm Reel 58 (owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association).

^[2] “History of Salt,” History of Salt | SaltWorks®. Accessed November 8, 2016, https://www.seasalt.com/salt-101/history-of-salt.

^[3] Henderson, et. al. Folio 42.

^[4] Rumble, Victoria. “Early American Food and Drink.” Colonial America: The Simple Life. August 2009. Accessed November 09, 2016. http://colonial-american-life.blogspot.com/2009/08/early-american-food-and drink.html

^[5] Mickey Parish. “How Do Salt and Sugar Prevent Microbial Spoilage?” Scientific American. 2006. Accessed December 05, 2016. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-salt-and-sugar-pre/

December 11, 2016
Sugar in the Atlantic World & What It Represented

Zebadiah Barnard // AMH 4112.001 – The Atlantic World, 1400-1900

Sugar today looks very different from sugar in the 18th century. Image from Agriculture Corner.

Sugar as we know it today is a product found in a grocery store and that has many uses – such as for cooking, flavoring food, and preservation – for people in their everyday lives. For most people, the use of sugar is in cooking, and this would have been the case in the early modern period too.

In the 18th century, sugar came in cones and had to be nipped to be used. Image courtesy of Jas. Townsend & Son, Inc.

In the Ready Money account for 1760-1761 in the Colchester ledger of the Glassford and Henderson store, sugar was a commodity that was pretty much constantly in demand and pretty much consistently purchased and paid for with cash.^[1] This commodity did not necessarily come in the powdered form that most people are familiar with today but was sold in cone-shaped bricks and had to be shaved, or nipped, off to be used by cooks.

Sugar was purchased often in December 1761 at the Glassford & Henderson’s Colchester store (folio 13).

Before being imported to the colonies, the sugar cane was grown on plantations, first in the Atlantic Islands off the coast of Africa and then in the Caribbean. It was a part of the plantation complex that relied on the trade of raw materials, manufactured goods, and slavery.^[2] As a result, this simple product affected the economy on a much larger scale and became ingrained in the way people lived their lives.^[3] The ready money account shows that people were buying sugar pretty consistently, and while not in huge quantities, its purchase reinforces its use in the everyday given it was usually sold in weights of only 2 to 3 pounds. There was, however, a single purchase of an entire barrel of sugar weighing 599 pounds!

A single barrel of sugar weighing 599 pounds was sold in a single transaction in December 1761 at the Colchester store (folio 13).

The price of the sugar at about 9 pence per pound suggests that it was a commodity that was more in line with a necessity item rather than a luxury. Sugar seemed likely to be used in the same way that we use it today in many of our food stuffs.^[4] The uses and function of sugar, economically, from the early modern period seem to indicate that this product played a much more vital role for which most people would initially give it credit.

Infographic on Sugar

^[1] Alexander Henderson, et. al. Ledger 1760-1761, Colchester, Virginia folio 13 Credit, from the John Glassford and Company Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

^[2] Thomas Benjamin. The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and their Shared History, 1400-1900. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2009

^[3] Jason Moore. “Sugar and Expansion in the early Modern World Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, no.3 (2000): 409-33. Accessed 10 November 2016. http//:www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40241510.pdf

^[4] Woodruff D. Smith. “Complications of the Commonplace: Tea, Sugar, and Imperialism.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no.2 (1992): 259-78. doi: 10.2307/205276

December 6, 2016