A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan invoiced Fort Pitt


In June 1766 the eastern trading firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan invoiced Fort Pitt for a diverse inventory that included claret, rum,

blankets, tobacco, gun flints, paint, wampum, hatchets, brass kettles, bar

lead, thread, vermilion, lace, gun powder, bullet molds, hunting saddles, tin

cups, jews harps, combs, knives, awls, muskets, bed lacing, shears, ribbon,

pipes, looking glass, razors, silver jewelry, needles, and articles of clothing

including ruffled shirts, plain shirts, calico shirts, leggings, matchcoats,

gartering, and breechclouts.

 The following year, the Indian department commissary at the post reported

that over 26,000 pounds sterling worth of merchandise, including 6,500 gallons

 of rum, had passed through the fort. He also noted that over 13,000 gallons of rum

 had been distributed by unlicensed traders and that other sutlers had exchanged

 up to 40,000 pounds sterling worth of goods. In return, Fort Pitt had taken in 10,587 pounds (weight) of

beaver pelts, 15,253 pounds of raccoon skins, 178,613 pounds of "Fall

Skins," 104,016 pounds of "Summer Skins," and smaller amounts of pelts

from otters, fishers, wolves, panthers, elk, and bear.

9

7. Boissevain, Friends of Friends, 147-69.

8. T. H. Breen, "An Empire of Goods: The Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776,"

Journal of British Studies, 25 (October, 1986), 467-99; James H. Merrell, "'Our Bond of

Peace': Patterns of Intercultural Exchange on the Carolina Piedmont, 1650-1750," in Peter

Wood, Gregory Waselkov, and Thomas Hatley, eds., Powhatan's Mantel: Indians in the

Colonial Southeast (Lincoln, 1989), 198-222. For a general study, see Carolyn Gilman, Where

Two Worlds Meet: The Great Lakes Fur Trade (St. Paul, 1982).

9. "The Crown to Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan For sundry goods delivered at different

Times, by order of Capt. Murray and Mr. Alexander McKee assistant agent for Indian Affairs,

for the use of the Indians, June 12, 1766," James Sullivan, Alexander Flick, Milton W.

Hamilton, et. al., eds., The Papers of Sir William Johnson, 14 vols. (Albany, 1921-1965), 5:
http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=010577.html&StartPage=72&EndPage=91&volume=105&newtitle=Volume%20105%20Page%2072

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