160

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 Lucius Brown Bradley (1800-1870), a manufacturer of paper boxes in Watertown, CT who made animal traps on the side. He was listed in the 1850 census for Watertown as a "manufacturer of paper boxes," and the Hartford Courant of 31 August 1855 notes that he was also granted a patent for an "improvement in traps for catching animals." 

    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? 


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