[Printed Circular, Issued by J.B. Toulmin & Son, Reporting on the State of the Southern Cotton Market in Antebellum Alabama].
Mobile, AL: March 12, 1853. [1]p., on blue paper, reproducing full text of a manuscript letter by lithography or a letter copying press, with short note added at lower left in manuscript, addressed on verso to "Philo. L. Shelton Esq Boston Mass." Old folds, small area of loss from removed wax seal, costing parts of a few words. Overall about very good. Item #13277
An informative circular from John Butler Toulmin (1788-1860), a merchant in Mobile, and son of the dissenting minister Rev. Joshua Toulmin of Taunton, England. Toulmin's brother was Harry Toulmin, a Unitarian minister and Kentucky politician. Interestingly, in his will, Toulmin freed his enslaved people and sent them to live in "Jamaica, Liberia, or California." Here, Toulmin writes to Philo Strong Shelton (1805-1877), a Boston merchant, detailing the current cotton market in Mobile.
Toulmin reports that the market is "rather dull" at the moment, though with "prices gradually hardening" and that a decline reported by a steamer from Liverpool "had no effect here." All was not good news, though, as Toulmin relates that the port at Mobile took in 36,000 fewer bales of cotton than the previous week because of flooding that "prevented the hauling of cotton to the landings." In five lines in the middle of the letter, Toulmin details the prices of five separate grades of cotton from ordinary to fair. A small manuscript note is added at bottom left, reporting sales two days later.
The present document was reproduced in some unknown quantity, likely by lithography, or perhaps through the use of a letter copying press, likely at the direction of Toulmin for wide dissemination to numerous customers and colleagues. We do not recall seeing any other examples of business correspondence from this period, emanating from Mobile, and produced in this way. Further, we could locate no other examples of this particular, unusually produced, commercial circular from Alabama.
Price: $450