Trading in Scrabbletown

A sealed barrel yielded some four thousand papers belonging to a Somerset trader, including shop ledgers, letters, account books, lottery tickets, and legal records from the 1810s through 1832. The documents outline everyday commerce in a small coastal suburb, family and business correspondence, accounts of credit and debt, and responses to maritime disruptions and the War of 1812. They reveal local practices such as lotteries and debtor imprisonment, widespread literacy among residents, and the interconnected social and economic networks that sustained rural mercantile life.