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THOMAS\' BUFFALO CITY DIRECTORY FOR 1862
Containing a General Directory of Citizens, a Business Directory, and Much Other Useful Information
by E. A. Thomas, Publisher
Published by E. A. Thomas, Buffalo, NY, 1862. Very good rebound hardcover with cloth spine retaining original illustrated boards and partial leather spine cover. Tight binding, solid spine, clean unmarked text. 8vo, illustrated with wood-engraved advertisements, 371 pages. Edge and corner wear to boards; stamps from Elliott Square Law Library to front and rear endpapers; A. Reynolds & Co. signatures to front endpapers and flyleaf.
This is no ordinary city directory but a primary source document of extraordinary historical density, compiled at the precise moment when the second year of Civil War was transforming Buffalo from a prosperous lake port into an engine of Union mobilization. The prefatory essay by Sanford B. Hunt chronicles a city in patriotic ferment: within weeks of Fort Sumter, Buffalo had organized the 21st New York State Volunteers under Col. William F. Rogers; by August 1861, Col. Daniel D. offerwell—future brigadier general who would fall at Cedar Creek—had completed organization of the 49th Regiment and \"left for the seat of war.\" In February 1862, the 100th Regiment departed as part of the \"Eagle Brigade\" raised by Gen. G. A. Scroggs, destined for the bloody assault on Fort Wagner. The directory records that 5,000 Buffalo men had already mustered for service, while the Ladies\' Aid Society worked \"in concert with the U.S. Sanitary Commission\" to aid wounded soldiers \"on the banks of the Potomac.\"
The alphabetical listings document an astonishing constellation of historical figures. Here is Grover Cleveland at twenty-five, a young attorney two decades before his presidency. Here is Millard Fillmore, thirteenth president, commanding the Home Guard militia in his adopted city. William G. Fargo appears both in the listings as Mayor and on the original printed covers as Secretary of American Express—the covers themselves a remarkable survival, advertising both American Express (Henry Wells, President; Wm. C. Fargo, Secretary) and the United States Express Company. E. G. Spaulding, the \"Father of the Greenback,\" is documented mere months after his Legal Tender Act created national paper currency. Peyton Harris, the formerly enslaved businessman who funded construction of Michigan Street Baptist Church—the last major Underground Railroad stop before Canada—appears at 379 Michigan Street.
The commercial statistics reveal Buffalo at its wartime zenith: 13,886 vessel passages through the harbor in 1861, freight rates \"extravagantly high,\" and 1861 standing \"foremost as a period when in all the avenues of trade and manufactures there was a flood-tide of good fortunes.\" The illustrated advertisements document the industrial infrastructure supporting Union victory: E. & B. Holmes\'s patent stave and barrel machinery for oil, pork, liquor, and flour barrels; iron foundries, brass works, and forges converting Lake Erie\'s strategic position into materiel production.
For collectors of presidential Americana, Civil War history, financial history, African American studies, Western New York regional history, or nineteenth-century industrial development, this directory represents a convergence of collecting categories rarely encountered in a single volume. An essential research document for institutions and serious collectors.
Page 161 Grover Cleveland
Page 184 Millard Fillmore
Page 182 William Fargo - Mayor
Page 299 E G Spaulding
Page 270 Pratt & Co. Pascal Pratt, Samuel Pratt, William & Josiah Letchworth
Page 219 SS Jewett, Jewett & Root (page 26 advertising)
Page 203 Peyton Harris (Clothes Cleaner) 379 Michigan
Page 294 Franklin Sidway
Page 47 Michigan Street Baptist (colored)
Notable advertisements
Jewett Stove, Henry T. Gillet & Son Alcohol Distillery, Buffalo Horse Infirmary, Buffalo File Works, Clinton Iron Works, Eagle Brass foundry, Lafayette Brass & Bell Foundry, Niagara Steam Forge Works, Great Western Railway, Michigan Central Rail Road, John S. Morris & Son Fireworks, Eagle Iron Works, Buffalo Morning & Evening Post, Buffalo Morning Express, The Buffalo Courier, Pratt & Letchworth Manufacturers, Pratt & Co, Buffalo Iron & Nail Works
Loc: E1
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THOMAS\' BUFFALO CITY DIRECTORY FOR 1862
Containing a General Directory of Citizens, a Business Directory, and Much Other Useful Information
by E. A. Thomas, Publisher
Published by E. A. Thomas, Buffalo, NY, 1862. Very good rebound hardcover with cloth spine retaining original illustrated boards and partial leather spine cover. Tight binding, solid spine, clean unmarked text. 8vo, illustrated with wood-engraved advertisements, 371 pages. Edge and corner wear to boards; stamps from Elliott Square Law Library to front and rear endpapers; A. Reynolds & Co. signatures to front endpapers and flyleaf.
This is no ordinary city directory but a primary source document of extraordinary historical density, compiled at the precise moment when the second year of Civil War was transforming Buffalo from a prosperous lake port into an engine of Union mobilization. The prefatory essay by Sanford B. Hunt chronicles a city in patriotic ferment: within weeks of Fort Sumter, Buffalo had organized the 21st New York State Volunteers under Col. William F. Rogers; by August 1861, Col. Daniel D. offerwell—future brigadier general who would fall at Cedar Creek—had completed organization of the 49th Regiment and \"left for the seat of war.\" In February 1862, the 100th Regiment departed as part of the \"Eagle Brigade\" raised by Gen. G. A. Scroggs, destined for the bloody assault on Fort Wagner. The directory records that 5,000 Buffalo men had already mustered for service, while the Ladies\' Aid Society worked \"in concert with the U.S. Sanitary Commission\" to aid wounded soldiers \"on the banks of the Potomac.\"
The alphabetical listings document an astonishing constellation of historical figures. Here is Grover Cleveland at twenty-five, a young attorney two decades before his presidency. Here is Millard Fillmore, thirteenth president, commanding the Home Guard militia in his adopted city. William G. Fargo appears both in the listings as Mayor and on the original printed covers as Secretary of American Express—the covers themselves a remarkable survival, advertising both American Express (Henry Wells, President; Wm. C. Fargo, Secretary) and the United States Express Company. E. G. Spaulding, the \"Father of the Greenback,\" is documented mere months after his Legal Tender Act created national paper currency. Peyton Harris, the formerly enslaved businessman who funded construction of Michigan Street Baptist Church—the last major Underground Railroad stop before Canada—appears at 379 Michigan Street.
The commercial statistics reveal Buffalo at its wartime zenith: 13,886 vessel passages through the harbor in 1861, freight rates \"extravagantly high,\" and 1861 standing \"foremost as a period when in all the avenues of trade and manufactures there was a flood-tide of good fortunes.\" The illustrated advertisements document the industrial infrastructure supporting Union victory: E. & B. Holmes\'s patent stave and barrel machinery for oil, pork, liquor, and flour barrels; iron foundries, brass works, and forges converting Lake Erie\'s strategic position into materiel production.
For collectors of presidential Americana, Civil War history, financial history, African American studies, Western New York regional history, or nineteenth-century industrial development, this directory represents a convergence of collecting categories rarely encountered in a single volume. An essential research document for institutions and serious collectors.
Page 161 Grover Cleveland
Page 184 Millard Fillmore
Page 182 William Fargo - Mayor
Page 299 E G Spaulding
Page 270 Pratt & Co. Pascal Pratt, Samuel Pratt, William & Josiah Letchworth
Page 219 SS Jewett, Jewett & Root (page 26 advertising)
Page 203 Peyton Harris (Clothes Cleaner) 379 Michigan
Page 294 Franklin Sidway
Page 47 Michigan Street Baptist (colored)
Notable advertisements
Jewett Stove, Henry T. Gillet & Son Alcohol Distillery, Buffalo Horse Infirmary, Buffalo File Works, Clinton Iron Works, Eagle Brass foundry, Lafayette Brass & Bell Foundry, Niagara Steam Forge Works, Great Western Railway, Michigan Central Rail Road, John S. Morris & Son Fireworks, Eagle Iron Works, Buffalo Morning & Evening Post, Buffalo Morning Express, The Buffalo Courier, Pratt & Letchworth Manufacturers, Pratt & Co, Buffalo Iron & Nail Works
Loc: E1
