I most heartily Congratulate You on the Completion of the Middlesex Canal, the Judgment and Perseverence with which that Stupenduous work hath been Conducted will deservedly render the Name of Baldwin as Immortal as the Middlesex Canal it Self.

Thus read a letter written to Colonel Loammi Baldwin, the able engineer, by his friend and former partner, Josiah Pierce, on December 25, 1802. But today that monument is but a dry ditch and “the canal in any complete form remains principally as a faint memory in the minds of some few members of the oldest living generation.” However, another monument, which none of the available biographical accounts has mentioned, remains to remind later generations of the feats of this pioneer engineer and Revolutionary hero — the town which bears his name — Baldwin, in Cumberland County, Maine.

The Business Historical Society has received another splendid addition to its ever growing collection of foreign business manuscripts. This is an eighteenth-century Spanish account book which was found in the city of Havana during the Spanish-American War and brought to this country by an American soldier. This old book, beautiful to look upon with its handsome writing in iron-gall ink on heavy vellum paper, and valuable for the information it contains, is the gift of Colonel John R. Fordyce, a member of the Business Historical Society.

In the last number of the Bulletin we sketched the life of Albert Dibblee, a San Francisco commission merchant whose business papers comprise one of the finest collections ever presented to the Society. This article will give a little of the history of Albert Dibblee's business as seen through these papers. The material has all been taken from the letters and account books now available at Baker Library. There are nearly 200 volumes as well as a large quantity of unbound papers in the collection.

At a joint session of the American Historical Association and the Business Historical Society held at Soldiers Field, Boston, December 30, 1930, business history was discussed for the first time in any comprehensive fashion under such auspices.

Ambrose Heal published in 1925 a book entitled London Tradesmen's Cards of the Eighteenth Century, and in the preface to this very fine volume he made the comment that “it is perhaps remarkable that no book has hitherto been published dealing with tradesmen's cards. … Not only has no book ever been published on the subject, but references in archaeological journals and collectors' magazines are of the scantiest nature and hard to track.” What Mr. Heal said six years ago is equally true today of American material, with one important exception. In 1927 a volume entitled Early American Trade Cards, from the collection of Bella C. Landauer, with critical notes by Adele Jenny, was published in New York. In this volume there are forty-four illustrations, taking us into the history of American trade cards from about 1730 to 1877. Recently Mrs. Bella C. Landauer made a generous gift to the George F. Baker Library of several hundred trade cards of the latter part of the nineteenth century. These cards supplemented two previous gifts, for there were some trade cards in the Trotter Collection, and Mr. Charles H. Taylor has given a number of such cards to the Business Historical Society.

A beginning has been made to preserve business manuscripts in the South. The following are some of the facts discovered by Howard Corning, Head of the Manuscript Division of the Baker Library, as a result of a three weeks' motor trip through the southern states in November.

Material on the methods of the dry goods business prior to the Civil War is almost as scarce as the proverbial “hen's teeth.” It was undoubtedly carried on in all parts of the country and undoubtedly, also, the manner of conducting it changed from time to time, yet the methods of operation and the changes therein have left surprisingly little trace. Something of this history may be secured from the chance remarks of the commercial newspapers of the period, and probably much may be acquired (the work being almost wholly yet to be done) from the account books and letter books of country stores and other mercantile establishments of those days.

The biographical information in the following article has been taken from a sketch of his father's life written by Mr. Harrison Dibblee at the request of the Business Historical Society.

Albert Dibblee, commission merchant of San Francisco from 1849 to 1895, came of a family that had been among the earliest settlers in America. He was directly descended from Robert Dibblee who settled in Danbury, Connecticut, in 1630.

German business firms, especially banking firms, have frequently undertaken the preparation of memorial volumes devoted to the development of their particular enterprise.

The sun arose on the morning of Tuesday, August 31, 1858 upon a strange scene on Boston Common. A scaffold reared its ugly head close by the flag staff and a huge tank was placed conveniently near. By nine o'clock throngs were gathering in the streets, pressing for a view of the Common. However, the crowds were not such as one would expect at an affair heralded by the erection of a scaffold. Rather were they a jubilant and excited gathering: now and then could be heard exclamations of surprise and no few were wagering and betting as though a horse race were the attraction of the day. A race it was indeed, but a race of fire engines and not of horses. The City of Boston was holding a trial of engines before procuring two or three for the use of the City.

Last month the century-old title controversy was revived when Mrs. Pinchot, wife of the Governor of Pennsylvania, in a radio talk, made the assertion that she had always objected to the use of the expression “First Lady”; declaring that “it is a foolish, high-hat kind of a label, whether it is the first lady of a city, a state, or of the whole country — and is not especially appropriate in America.”

The following interview with Professor Matthew B. Hammond of the Department of Economics of Ohio State University may indicate how collections of old business manuscripts are used and what may be their value. Professor Hammond has made the history of the cotton textile industry his particular study for much of a lifetime, with the result that he has become an authority on the subject. Throughout all of his study he has found manuscript material one of his best sources of information.

Dr. O. T. Howe has given a Record Book and copies of letters of his esteemed ancestor Captain Octavius Howe to the Business Historical Society. These letters were used by Dr. Howe in his book Argonauts of '49 — History and Adventures of the Emigrant Companies from Massachusetts 1849-1850 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1923), and also in the unpublished biography he has prepared of Captain Howe. The letters in question deal with Captain Howe's exploits in taking the brig Tigress and her cargo around the Horn to San Francisco, and his attempts to dispose of her cargo, in the early fifties.

In a discussion of the ever present tariff problem one often reflects on the determining factors in the tariff policy of our country. The correspondence of Justin S. Morrill, ardent protectionist and author of the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861, sheds considerable light upon this subject. The material covers the period between 1867 and 1897. It has been acquired by the Baker Library through the courtesy of John Spargo, President of the Vermont Historical Society.

The two engravings published by Pyne and Nattes in 1800, from which the illustrations (page 6) were made, are reminiscent of a delightful old account book kept by a wheelwright of Charlestown (Massachusetts) during the years 1798-1808. The book, which was among the earliest gifts to the Society, is as entertaining as it is informing. The young man who kept the book made an entry for every single day during the years covered. He records not only a description of the work undertaken each day but also his recreational activities.

Tunnel — what imaginative pictures are conjured up in our minds on hearing this word! To most of us come visions of trains swooping through impassable mountains. Few of us would think of a tunnel as a foot-path or carriage-way under a river, but the first successful tunnel was just such a project under the Thames River.

During the past month both Mr. Howard Corning, Curator of the Manuscript Department of the George F. Baker Library, and Mr. Frank C. Ayres, Secretary of the Business Historical Society, spoke over stations WBZ, WBZA and WIXAZ. This broadcast was arranged through the courtesy of Mr. E. J. Rowell, Coöperative Representative of the New England Radio Market News Service.