tall desk with slopes on all four sides and a plane surface on top
to hold the necessary implements or articles for the transaction
of business. Every desk had one or more boxes of wafers and a
stamp for ordinary letter sealing, and sealing wax with the
candle hard by for extraordinary cases. The pen used was
usually the quill, for though the steel pen had been invented
some time before, it had not come into general use; in fact, in
1840 was quite a rarity. Joseph Gillette patented his improve-
ment in 1831, but it was slow work to supersede the goosequills
which every school-teacher had to mend for his pupils, generally,
and every boy had in time to learn to make and mend for him-

self. The box of sand to dry the manuscript—a most annoying
device it was—took the place of blotting paper, which then had
not come into use. Safes there were, of course, pretentiously

into the United States in 1840; the government did not adopt
their use, however, until 1847, although tentatively they were
used in N ew York in 1845, and an adhesive stamp was used in
St. Louis in the same year. It will readily be understood that
few letters were written when 25 cents was the rate of postage
and that, as payment was required on receipt of the letter the |
published list of uncalled-for letters was of extraordinary length:

166 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River | Early Years 167
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What were known as ship letters sometimes came by vessels into
the port of Wilmington. They were required to be deposited in
the post office, the conveyancer receiving part of the postage
The mails early in this century were conveyed from shee to
place in express transmission, or on more important routes b
post boys, with relays of horses at short distances. The cia
coach, perhaps at the same time, certainly a little later and until

 

the advent of railroads, was used as the mail conveyancer. The
route south from Wilmington was across the ferry at foot of
Market Street and the causeway, via Georgetown, S. C., and
Charleston. East, the route then and now—but not ais well
now—was and is known as the New Bern Road. North. the
way seems to have been over Little Bridge, via Wayneshoro
(now Goldsboro), and so on. The blowing of the horn announc-

ing the coming stage was a source of infinite delich
: t to th ll
boys of the period, black and white alike. : =

The change in the character of business transactions in Wil-
mington between 1830 and 1850, though not nearly so great as
that between 1870 and 1890, is nevertheless worthy of note.

The exports in the early thirties were mainly, almost exelu-
sively, lumber, shingles, and staves to the West Indies and rice
naval stores, and cotton to the North; the importations princi-
pally sugar, molasses, and rum, especially rum. One lookin

over the advertisements of those days can hardly fail to ~
struck with the amount of Jamaica rum and New England rum
offered for sale. The Washingtonian temperance movement in

ishing the demand for liquors. In course of time the channel
of West Indian trade became in a great measure diverted from

Wilmington. The trade in the forties was not what it had been
in the decade previous.

The means and manner of conducting business in 1840 were
essentially different from what they became a decade or two
later. In every countinghouse of any pretensions there was a

 

_--

;

dubbed “patent asbestos” and “salazuander,” but they were in-

finitely inferior to the chilled-iron fireproof safes now in use.
A word or two now as to the way traffic, that is the ordi-

nary buying and selling of merchandise, was conducted previous
to 1840, and indeed through the forties and perhaps later. It

must be recollected that most men of means owned slaves; espe-
cially did farmers and planters own many of them. Then, as
now, planters had regular accounts with the dealers—dealers
rather than factors—and these dealers furnished the planters
with every article, large or small, that they needed. On the
first of January of each year the account of the planter was
made up and presented. He paid it if he chose or such part as
he chose, and a note bearing interest at 6 per cent was given for

the balance. The next year the same process was gone through.
At intervals the entire debt was liquidated, if the debtor chose,

or if the creditor compelled. In general, however, dealers of
means kept their notes as an investment. Occasionally a note

was transferred in the purchase of property, or the notes were
“shaved” to enable a holder to raise cash under stress, but in
many cases new notes with interest added (and thus com-

pounded) were taken from time to time, usually every year,
and no settlement was made. The death of the maker of the

obligation, however, made a settlement imperative. When he
who owed was found to be getting “shaky,” the note was put
in suit in order to collect, and some property had to be sold, a

negro or two, not improbably, to satisfy the judgment.
The planter upon whose estate debt was thus accumulating

was providing against the evil day by using his money to buy