124

Lucius B. Bradley.

Ledger of a Connecticut animal trap manufacturer.

Watertown, CT, 1850-1856
[6], 22, 27-33, [39] manuscript pages. Narrow folio, 12¼ x 3¾ inches, original ¼ calf over marbled boards, spine splitting; lacking at least two leaves, otherwise minimal wear to contents. 

  • Notes: This account book was kept by a manufacturer of paper boxes in Watertown, CT who made animal traps on the side. The proprietor is not named, but Lucius Brown Bradley (1800-1870) was listed in the 1850 census for Watertown as a "manufacturer of paper boxes." He was living with his family, and with two young women who are named in this ledger as employees (Mary Green aged 17 and Maria Baldwin aged 14). Bradley was also a clockmaker (not reflected in this volume), and the Hartford Courant of 31 August 1855 notes that he was also granted a patent for an "improvement in traps for catching animals." Baldwin is named in his own personal account toward the rear of the volume, and one batch of traps was sent "by Lucius Bradley to Chicago as samples." We have no doubt this is his ledger.

    Many of the accounts are for delivering large quantities of shipping boxes to three customers in the Watertown area: thread manufacturer Merritt Heminway; sewing machine manufacturers Warren, Wheeler & Woodruff / Wheeler & Wilson; and Warren & Newton Manufacturing Company, who made suspenders. These accounts are followed by weekly labor accounts with employees, almost all of them women. They were paid in cash or by credit at the Warren & Newton store. 

    Toward the rear of the volume are several pages relating to a separate business making "traps," described variously as for rats or mice; and with levers, or "plain." Several of the buyers are named, most notably the Smithsonian Institution's legendary founding curator Spencer Baird in three batches. Was Baird buying traps to procure animal specimens in the wild, or was he trying to keep vermin out of the new museum's storage areas? One employee is paid expressly for making traps: Aner Bradley, apparently the proprietor's nephew (1823-1898), who also took some traps to sell on commission.  
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