REGISTER OF HENRY P. HUSTED'S WATERFRONT IMPORTS WAREHOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, SEPTEMBER 1854 - APRIL 1859.
New York: 1854-1859. Folio, 11" x 17", preprinted register with tabbed index and lined pages. [13-index], 638pp [manuscript entries total 425pp, other pages blank]. Full contemporary calf, [rubbed, worn through at edges and spine], front hinge split, index leaves coming detached. Occasional later owner's doodles (most notably on page 390), some spotting . Else, contents Very Good. With several loose invoices and receipts from the 1850s.
This register is a window on the merchant trade in New York City during the 1850s. The detailed entries name the ship, its port of origin, owner, date and description of cargo, date of withdrawal, fees charged.
Merchants sometimes left their goods in the warehouse for a year or more. For example, the first entry is for 300 cases of licorice from Liverpool left in the warehouse on 20 September 1854; and retrieved in three batches in February 1856. Other cargoes left with Husted include oil, borax, cigars, wine, coffee, yarn, silk, hemp, raisins, rubber, and more, mostly from international ports in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, such as Belize, Canton, Havre, Soudan, Foo Choo Foo, Calcutta, Penang, Manilla, Marseilles, and Havana.
Merchants mentioned include: [Josiah] Macy & Sons; H[enry] J. Baker & Brother [Charles J. Baker]; [Charles P.] Burdett & [George D.] Noble; Otto Wilhelm Pollitz & Co.; [Lewis] Cramer & [Henry] Abegg; F[irmin] Cousinery & Co.; William A. Sale & Co.; [Moses H.] Grinnell, [Robert P.] Minturn & Co.; Thomas Owen & Son; Schieffelin Brothers & Co. [Sidney A. & William H. Schieffelin]; George Miln; Benjamin H. Field; William Ropes & Co.; Francis Hathaway; Napier, Johnson & Co.; and many more.
Ships included Ship Parthenia, Brig Pride of the Sea, Bark Delia Chapin, Ship Don Quixote, Ship Edward Everett, Ship Rose Standish, Ship Vision, Bark Thos. Richie, Ship Yorktown, Brig Wenonah, Ship Neptune.
Henry Peter Husted (1804-1870), born in Connecticut, lived briefly in New York in the 1830s, and settled in New Jersey after he married Deborah Frost Chadeayne [1805-1870] in 1836. New York City Directories from the late 1840s and 1850s list his bonded warehouse at 214 & 221 South St. Henry may have been buried in his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, as his name is listed on his parents' headstone at Newfield Cemetery there.
Among merchants listed, Moses H. Grinnell [1803-1877] of the merchant and shipping firm of Grinnell, Minturn & Co. was a Congressman from New York's 3d District [1839-1841], president of the New York Chamber of Commerce, Collector of the Port of New York, and Central Park Commissioner. Josiah Macy [1785-1872] and his sons William and Josiah Jr. owned a mercantile firm in New York City. The business started dealing in oil and owned more than 30 whaling vessels. After the Civil War, the firm opened one of the first oil refineries in New York and was later bought out by the Standard Oil Company under the Rockefellers. [Blume: HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE U.S. MARITIME INDUSTRY, Scarecrow Press: 2012, pp. 258-259; The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, Website accessed 11/1/2017.]
Henry J. and Charles J. Baker organized the glassworks firm of H.J. Baker & Brother in New York City in 1850 following a great fire at their similar business in Baltimore. They rebuilt in Baltimore and opened the firm in New York City where they were able to have imported French glass and chemicals. Burdett & Noble was a merchant firm in New York City. Charles P. Burdett was later a Trustee of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Co. Otto W. Pollitz was partnered with William H. Westervelt in the firm O.W. Pollitz & Co. which offered drugs and general merchandise, including a range of imported medicinal products. The merchandise firm of Cramer & Abegg was appointed as sole agent of Heidsieck & Co. Champaigne business on January 1, 1854; Charles Heidsieck, the owner, being credited with popularizing Champagne in the United States in the 1850s. F. Cousinery & Co. were commission merchants and importers of French and Mediterranean Products. Schieffelin Brothers & Co. were importers of drugs, fancy goods, perfumery, druggist sundries, etc. William A. Sale & Co. were East India and China chipping merchants. Item #34278
Price: $2,500.00