TRAVELING SALESMAN Rare Handwritten Diary of Midwest Map & Engraving Peddler

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TRAVELING SALESMAN Rare Handwritten Diary of Midwest Map & Engraving Peddler :
$64.55

FANTASTIC, ORIGINAL MID-19TH CENTURY MANUSCRIPT DIARY OF AN ITINERANT SALES AGENT. This fabulous early volume dates from 1864 and was kept by an ambitious traveling salesman. Author traveled extensively throughout the Midwest and Northeast as he peddled maps, engravings, and frames door-to-door while representing a company based in Chicago. An entry here indicates author once resided in Dubuque, Iowa, and may have still been living in Iowa during the period in which he kept this travel diary (\"While in Dubuque took board at my old place 216 Main St.\"). (Scroll down for more pictures.)

Fascinating handwritten diary chronicles the extensive travels of a salesman who maintained an ambitious travel itinerary. All the more impressive considering the Civil War was raging at the time and tensions were high throughout the country. With a trunk in hand full of maps, engravings, frames, and applications, author went door-to-door calling on individuals, professionals, and businesses in numerous places including Dubuque and McGregor, Iowa; Milwaukee and La Crosse, Wisconsin; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Buffalo, New York; Pittsfield, Massachusetts; etc. He makes fastidious notes pertaining to travel mileage between various cities and towns, and his customers included apothecary shops, tin shops, lumber dealers, candle factories, saloons, carpet stores, museums, telegraph operators, justices of the peace, surveyors, provost marshals, inns and hotels, bakers, breweries, mills, book stores, agricultural implement dealers, boat houses, etc. Several businesses are mentioned by name along with the contact person, and author occasionally orders more stock from Chicago, presumably the location of the company for which he sold maps, engravings, and frames.
Author is constantly in motion while \"canvassing\" door-to-door and racking up sales throughout the Midwest and Northeast. He often travels by schooner, ferry, or steamer and mentions some of the vessels by name (\"Steamer War Eagle\", etc.). Sometimes his travel is laid out in advance and other times he decides where to go next in the midst of his travels. \"12 July moving under way at 5 clear & hot - at 12 o\'clock anchored under the west bank of the river near [E]sopus Island went on shore and got some cherries & cider got under way at 1 o\'clock and at 6 P.M. came to an anchor in Roundout Creek. Evening went on shore. 13th [July] packed my trunk and all ready to go ashore at 8 o\'clock went on shore took the ferry across the river then up to Troy fare $1.25 during day made 3 applications clear & pleasant .50 cts for lodging...15th [July] morning clear & hot. Took breakfast in an eating saloon .20 cts cup coffee & bread..put my trunk and valise on board a South Port sch[ooner] bound for Providence [Rhode Island]. 16th [July] made up my mind not to go to Rhode Island. Took my trunk out and made up my mind to go to Pittsfield, Mass[achusetts]...Stopped at the Pittsfield House $1.00 per day\".
Author also writes about interactions he has along with way with fellow travelers (\"drank a lemon punch with I. Wheeler from Texas bound to Boston\", etc.) as well as customers and others at the various venues he calls on (\"might have some gay sport with the girls in the factory even Mary Hall\", \"Spent day about the city evening with M. Allison at Waglow\'s Rum Saloon\", etc.). Other entries include observations he makes of the cities and towns he stops at to make sales calls such as Lansing, Iowa (\"I walked up in the village contains 1,000 inhabitants the air was alive with wild pigeons\", etc.). He also makes entries pertaining to the actual sales calls (\"thinks he will take one any way\", etc.). An absolutely fascinating early travel diary of an itinerant map, engraving, and frame salesman.
Condition: Rare book remains in good overall condition (see pictures). Volume bound in original leather-backed marbled boards; moderate cover wear, mild toning, a bit of splitting at gutter, scattered smudging and minor staining, etc., generally clean internally. Volume contains about 55 pp. of manuscript entries in pencil with some additional blank pages; and measures approx 6\" tall x 3.5\" wide x .5\" thick. Quite a find and a very worthy acquisition indeed.
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