Bills of sale

Scope and Contents The collection primarily documents Melcher’s purchases of goods to sell in his store. It includes printed billheads, bills, drafts, and receipts, which indicate a wide trade with firms in most of New England, and in New York. Melcher purchased such items as knives, cuff pins, coral amulets, ring boxes, chains, earrings, pins for fraternal orders, candlesticks, Parian pitchers, rings (some set with stones), jet jewelry, thimbles, coffin plates, ladles, scissors, buttons, watch fobs, tea...

Scope and Contents Almost exclusively business letters, including orders, complaints, bills, payments, inquiries, and the like, from November 1865-March 1866, mostly for felt and wadding. Machinery is discussed in some letters. Includes a few pieces of legal correspondence and personal letters. An item of particular note: a letter from Bacon's son Alonzo, dated 26 November [1865?], asking him to "present me with your gold fob seal that you used to wear when I first gave evidence that I was a nuisance .......

Scope and Contents The papers are a collection of American ephemera related to funerals and mourning customs. It consists of a wide variety of mostly late nineteenth century printed materials that document American funerary and mourning practices of the time. The collection includes manuscript bills for grave-digging, burial and gravestones; printed eulogies and elegies; printed invitations to funerals, 1827-1925; printed and pictorial billheads for funeral-related businesses, 1838-1916; printed memorial...