The Colonial Economy: Commerce and Public Finance

The economic history of colonial Connecticut is dealt with in general works on New England such as William B. Weeden's classic Economic and Social History of New England 1620-1789 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1894), 2 vols, which is full of data but does not provide much analysis or generalization. Percy Wells Bidwell and John I. Falconer's History of Agriculture in the Northern United State 1620-1860 (Washington, D. C., 1925) is also very useful. A modern study--reliable, scholarly, and up-to-date--is Edwin J. Perkins, The Economy of Colonial America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), which includes a full apparatus and maps in only 177 pages.

To provide the context for public finance in colonial Connecticut you can use another very recent work, Robert K. Becker's Revolution, Reform and the Politics of America Taxation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980). Look in the index under Connecticut--there's lots of material; and don't miss the chart on page 235 of Connecticut colony-wide general taxes 1765-17 75. An invaluable aid for rationalizing relative cash values in the colonies and Europe is John J. McCusker's Money and Exchange in Europe and America 1600-1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1978). McCusker found little data for Connecticut, but his book contains a table that converts Connecticut currency into ounces of silver for most years between 1740 and 1755. The quickest and easiest way to get some understanding of Connecticut's monetary non-system in the Colonial period however, is through Glenn Weaver's "Some Aspects of 18th-Century Connecticut Trade," in CHS Bulletin 22(January, 1957)1:23-31. Weaver explains the money-barter system bookkeeping, and the value of Connecticut currency from 1709 to about 1775. He also provides rough equivalencies to New York Rhode Island, and Massachusetts’s currency.

There is no comprehensive study of the colonial Connecticut economy--not even a full-length survey. But Bruce C. Daniels in "Economic Development in Colonial and Revolutionary Connecticut: An Overview" in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series 3(July, 1980)3:429-50, provides a clearly written and convenient sketch.

Two doctoral dissertations fill large gaps in the literature:

Saladino, Gaspare John. "The Economic Revolution in Late Eighteenth Century Connecticut" University of Wisconsin, 1964. This is an extraordinary effort, jam-packed with information, analysis, and generalization. It contains in appendices a whole series of miscellaneous charts and tables of economic activity. The revolution of which Saladino writes is described thus: "The Connecticut economy, once basically self-sufficient became increasingly commercially-oriented. The emergence of a market economy and a large export trade precipitated this fundamental change. Connecticut traded with the West Indies and the neighboring colonies or states, existing as an integral part of their economies. Commercially-minded farmers...produced large surpluses of grain, flaxseed, and especially livestock and meat and dairy products, and in so doing more fully exploited Connecticut's inland regions.... The desire to produce for markets also infected manufacturers so that manufacturing became a major sector of the economy." (From the abstract)

Van Dusen, Albert E. "The Trade of Revolutionary Connecticut" University of Pennsylvania 1948. Van Dusen conceives of trade "in broad terms ... involving importantly far more people than those in the small group called ‘merchants.’ To an important extent practically every Connecticut farmer, and this meant most adult males, was a 'trader' who had surplus produce to sell." (p. vi) Includes chapters on geographic features, population, transportation, political organization, British regulations, and the coming of the Revolution.

Another excellent work describing mercantile activity of the late colonial period to 1820 is that by Margaret Martin described below.

Perhaps the most pleasant and satisfying entree into a subject that can be arcane, dry, technical and full of numbers is to read a work that avoids all of the above: Glenn Weaver's Jonathan Trumbull: Connecticut's Merchant Magistrate (Hartford: CHS, 1956), based on his 1953 Yale dissertation. Don't miss his excellent "Bibliographical Note." Weaver deals with other aspects of the Connecticut colonial economy in "industry in an Agrarian Economy," CHS Bulletin 19(July, 1954)3:82-93, in which he discusses the dominant industrial activity--the processing of agricultural produce: distilling, meat-packing, leather making, hat making, treatment of potash and other forest products, including shipbuilding--all, however, "on an exceedingly small scale." (p. 89) Includes citations. See also

David Grayson Allen. '"Both Englands"' in Seventeenth Century New England (A Conference Held by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, June 18 and 19, 1982) David D. Hall and David Grayson Allen, eds.  Boston, the Society, 1984.

This is a study of Windsor, Hartford, Milford, and Guilford that attempts to establish the agricultural and other practices which were carried over from the settlers' English towns.  Grayson finds much difference from town to town and much replication of local English practice.  They study, based on  local histories and genealogies, probate and local records shows a very diverse economy with some towns emphasizing livestock raising, others cultivation of foodstuffs, and  others, e.g. Guilford where a major part of the local economy was artisanal such as iron working.  The seventeenth-century Connecticut economy had believed.  Grayson cites both Percy Bidwell and Bruce Daniels as having missed the variations from a strictly agricultural economy.  (p. 74n1)

Andrews, William G. "The Trading-House on the Paugasett" Papers of the 4NHCHS j1888):571 96. An account of an Indian trading post set up on the Housatonic River in the 1640s by New Haven adventurers.

Arms, Hiram P. "History and Results of Different Methods of Raising Ministers’ Salaries in Connecticut" in Leonard Bacon, ed., Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut New Haven: William C~ Kingsley, 1861.

Bronson, Henry. "Historical Account of Connecticut Currency." Papers of the NHCHS 1(1865):171-92. This work, also separately published, has long been standard. Start here. Collect $200 when you pass Go.

Daniels, Bruce C. "Money-Value Definitions of Economic Classes in Colonial Connecticut 1700-1776." Histore-Sociale-Social History November, 1974. Daniels lays out a method for categorizing heads of household by economic class. If you know a man’s assessed wealth, you can place him in an appropriate economic stratum by reference to this article. See also, for the same material Daniels' "Probate Inventories as a Source for Economic History in 18^th Century Connecticut" CHS Bulletin 37(January, 1972)1:1-9.

Destler, Chester M. "Barnabas Deane and the Barnabas Deane and Company.' CHS Bulletin 35(January, L970):7-19. An account of the Revolutionary War activities of the mercantile and patriotic younger brother of Silas Deane, with emphasis on a partnership among Barnabas Deane, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Nathaniel Greene formed to provide supplies to Greene as Quartermaster General.

-Connecticut: The Provision State. Bicentennial pamphlet V(1973). An excellent description of the economy--especially the agricultural economy--during the eighteenth century, with focus on the state's contribution to the Revolution.

Toby L. Ditz. Property and Kinship: Inheritance in Early Connecticut, 1750-1820

Princeton, Princeton V. Press, 1986. Based on a Columbia dissertation, this is a highly technical approach to the question of whether American society was different from European right from the start or whether it became different over a long period.  Ms. Ditz, through a study of systems of inheritance in one town that developed a partly commercial character (Wethersfield) and three towns in the uplands that remained largely self-sufficient (Union, Coventry, Willington), concluded that Connecticuters continued inheritance practices they had brought from England, but these practices were altered as agricultural towns became more commercial. 

Gipson, Lawrence Henry. Connecticut Taxation, 1750-1775. Tercentenary pamphlet X(1993). This is a reprint of Gipson's essay of the same title from Essays in Colonial History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931) and his "Connecticut Taxation and Parliamentary Aid preceding the Revolutionary War" (American Historical Review, 361930-31:721-39). Gipson is the master of this subject. In general he believes that British levies on Americans were not onerous.

Hooker, Roland M. The Colonial Trade Of Connecticut Tercentenary pamphlet L(1936). Forty-two pages. A nice summary, with much attention to the seventeenth century, of materials drawn largely from the Public Records.

Jones, Frederick Robertson. History of Taxation in Connecticut 1636-1776. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, vol. 8, 1896.  This is an excellent scholarly Study, clear and easy to read, despite the dryness of its subject

Judd, Sylvester. "The Dutch House of Good Hope at Hartford." New England Historical and Genealogical Register 6(1853). Judd collected more miscellaneous information about colonial and early national Connecticut than anyone else we know of. His notebooks are at the Forbes Library in Northampton, Mass.

Markham, F. G. “Early Coinage of Money in Connecticut" Connecticut Magazine 7(1903):380-86.

Marcuse, William. "Local Public Finance in Colonial Connecticut." Doctoral dissertation, Columbia, 1956. “This dissertation describes local taxation and expenditure and examines the role played by local public finance in colonial Connecticut. The purpose was not only to describe the system but also to present in quantitative terms the level of local taxation in relation to that of the colony." Marcuse concludes that "(l) local taxes in peacetime were about four times as great as colony taxes; (2) the church and related activities absorbed two-thirds to four-fifths of all local expenditure; (3) the burden of taxation was light although heavier than believed; (4) in comparison to England not only was the burden lighter but the system was much simpler, (5) the tax system was apparently considered just and equitable both in theory and practice: (6) the tax system was not consciously used to any great degree to encourage economic activity." (from the abstract)

Moore, Richard D. "Connecticut's First Bills of Credit-1709," Auctori Connec and Other Emissions. Hartford 1959.

Freeman W. Myer. "The Evolution of the Interpretation of Economic Life in Colonial Connecticut,"  Conn History No. 26.  Nov. 1985  pp. 33-43. Myer very briefly reviews the early work of Evarts Greene and Curtis Nettles and then more fully looks at dissertations by Van Dusen and Jaladino, an article by Bruce Daniels, and books by Bushman, Destler, and the Buels in order to trace  historians' conclusions about the Connecticut economy in the 18^th century.  He finds that early statements of the Colony's agricultural barrenness and  bear subsistence livelihood give way to universal agreement that Connecticut farmers engaged in as much trade as they could, which was considerable, and that the state was able to provide a large surplus to trade to the West Indies and to feed hungry soldiers during the Revolution.

Nettles, Curtis. "The Beginnings of Money in Connecticut" Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 23(1927):1-28. A major historian of the colonial economy describes efforts made in the first generation of settlement to deal with the shortage of currency through the Use of commodities, barter, wampum, etc. See also Weaver, Aspects"

P. Bradley Nutting. "Colonial Connecticut's Search for a Staple: A Mercantile Paradox," The New England Journal of History. 57 (Fall 2000) 1:58-69. The paradox is that Connecticut leaders sought a close mercantile link with the Mother Country while at the same time maintaining its high degree of political autonomy. Some way of obtaining specie might be found through a staple such as timber, silk, potash, fish, tobacco, rape oil -- all were tried but either logistics or government policy defeated every attempt.

Olson, Albert Laverne. Agricultural Economy and the Population in Eighteenth Century Connecticut. Tercentenary pamphlet XV(19S5), based on Olson's dissertation, “Economic Aspects of the Western migration from Connecticut Particularly in the late Eighteenth Century ...” Yale, 1954. Avery useful short work, with considerable attention to population and migration.

Parker, Wyman W. Connecticut’s Colonial and Continental Money. Bicentennial pamphlet XVIII (1976). A quick and simple descriptive account. Twenty-six nice illustration.

Perkins, N. S. “New London Society for Trade and Commerce.” Records and Papers of the New London Historical Society 2 (1896).

Pond, (Mrs.) Nathan Gilett. “Journal of 'Sir' Peter Pond--Born in Milford, Connecticut in 1740." Connecticut Magazine 10(1906)2:235-59. A transcript of Pond's travels in the fur trade in the Northwest and Canada in the 1780s.

Rice, Lloyd Preston. "Justice in Taxation in Colonial Connecticut" A typescript of 102 pages plus charts at the State Library based on Rice's Harvard dissertation (1920), "The General property Tax in Connecticut, 1635-1771." "For over a century, it has been a tradition of writers on taxation in Connecticut · · · to point out that property in colonial Connecticut, and especially land, was intended to be assessed not on the basis of capital or market value but according to its estimated income-value, as in England and elsewhere" (pp. 100-01) Rice concludes that the assessed valuation was intended to reflect the full capital value. He argues further, in both the article and the dissertation, that because of appreciation and reluctance to reevaluate land, landowners became greatly favored over livestock owners, so that by 1770 the tax burden, once evenly spread, fell with great inequity small farmers, livestock holders and especially poll tax payers. This is an important study, nowhere cited that we have been able to discover. Rice was professor of economics at Dartmouth.

Scott, Kenneth. "Counterfeiting in Colonial Connecticut" Numismatic Notes and Monographs 140(1957)

Tarbox, Increase N. “Dutch Traders on the River and the House of Hope,” in J. H. Trumbull, ed., Memorial History of Hartford County (Hartford, 18861. The story of the trading post at what became Hartford.

Thompson, Marvin. Connecticut Entrepreneur Christopher Leffingwell Bicentennial pamphlet XXXIII (1979). Leffingwell was a major commercial and industrial figure in eastern Connecticut during the Revolutionary era.

Trowbridge, Thomas R "History of the Ancient Maritime Interests of New Haven." Papers of the NHCHS 5(1882):85-204. An excellent descriptive piece coming up to after the War of 1812. Note the allusion on page 150 to dirty Chinese paintings on glass that shocked a local deacon.

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